NASCAR is probably a bad choice for your sarcasm, given it receives federal funding.
From my experience in DC, with many free museums and other artistic/cultural institutions, I see a lot of benefit. Here, at least, plenty of poor children get to see very educational stuff that they probably wouldn’t get to otherwise. It’s certainly reasonable to debate whether it’s worth the cost, but from my POV, there’s plenty of societal benefit to such spending. Some of those poor kids will be inspired to work in science, or engineering, or art, or some other field that they wouldn’t be exposed to were it not for public funding.
This is why I asked how the money is being spent. We have lots of free museums here as some sort of public good. The opera is very much not free, and a general grant looks to be a subsidy primarily to people who don’t need one. But I’m having trouble digging up details.
Also I think most of those museums are funded separately from the arts funding mentioned by septimus.
I think it’s simple politics. Conservatives would defund all kinds of programs as a matter of general principle if they could. But most programs have strong interests defending them. The fine arts happen to be something that receives federal funding and has a relatively small support base. So Republicans target it for defunding because the political cost is relatively low.
It’s probably on the principle, especially with opera, that the better off can pay for their own artistic pleasures, which in turn is based on the erroneous belief that the poor aren’t interested in the arts. (I myself am an opera fanatic and haven’t got a pot to piss in, so to speak.) Oh and there’s the fact that Trump and many of his buddies are Philistines.
AFAIK this was in the form of DOD sponsorship, i.e. a form of advertising with a hoped-for return on investment. Are they still doing that? Last I heard the Army didn’t feel it was paying off.
Because taxes aren’t produced magically by the Treasury.
Every dollar of taxes is collected under penalty of law and if someone refuses to pay those taxes, they can be jailed and if they resist the arrest, killed.
CPB happens to be something I would be willing to put someone in jail to preserve but others don’t feel that way.
The U.S. government spends money on many things that neither protect us from terrorists nor enhance corporate profits.
There are big science projects funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, along with funding to present the results of science projects to the public. In many cases these are science projects which will not provide any commercial return for decades, if ever. I support this funding because increased scientific knowledge enriches the entire human experience. One could argue that such science funding supports the elites — the lower class is less likely to be intrigued by science. There may be some truth in that … but I’m sure some impoverished teenagers are inspired by government-financed science and find their calling!
Space and science programs are just one of many examples of government programs which do not act directly to serve the obvious goals: combating terrorism or enriching corporations. To give just one more example, consider parks like Yellowstone. Fees charged of visitors at these parks are not enough to pay for their maintenance. I’m fully aware that right-wingers will argue that running these parks as a socialist charity is a bad thing — higher fees should be charged and/or the parks allowed to degrade and/or the entire park service should be turned over to profit-making corporations. I prefer to think of the parks as another example of human government providing for humanity.
If one opposes government support for the arts, why not oppose government funding of schools? Is there a clear qualitative difference between these two kinds of funding? I’ll ask Bricker — you oppose taxpayer funding of music; do you also oppose the diversion of public school funds to music classes? Or art classes? I think many of your fellow right-wingers do: I’ve heard that music classes are increasingly uncommon in public schools — successful people can pay for private music lessons for their children; why should they also have to pay for music lessons for the children of unsuccessful people?
The attempt to divert the question between federal funding and state-government funding is a red herring for several reasons:
(1) State governments operate under increasingly severe funding restrictions. Some are not permitted to run deficits.
(2) At present, rich taxpayers in New York and California subsidize opera, and other arts, for Alabamans. We’re all one big country. The Alabamans may vote for the right-wingers but good-hearted progressive thinkers don’t want to leave them behind.
(3) From a simplifying perspective, government spending is government spending. Those who think that opera-funding should be left to states are welcome to debate whether or not they want their states to fund opera! To just write “State’s issue; next case!” is to ignore the nub of the matter.
And, BTW, treating $150 million as a lot of money shows innumeracy! What’s that —About 45 cents per American? It adds up to far less, I think, than the cost of yesterday’s strike against Syria. And, while the most obvious billions of dollars in taxpayer assistance for major sports leagues is directed from state and local governments, special exemptions for Major League Baseball built into federal law are worth huge amounts of money, more than the paltry NEA money, I think.
So; Those of you opposing government funding of the arts: Do you also oppose music classes in public schools? Do you oppose NSF wasting money on esoteric projects? And, if you begrudge the $150 million for NEA tell us how you feel, and why, about the billions of tax dollars diverted to major league sports.
Remember, kids - funding the arts is transferring money to the rich. But corporate subsidies are creating jobs for the working class.
Yes, that makes sense.
Again, I want to know what “government funding of the arts” means. Education seems much more justifiable than entertainment that most people cannot afford or are not interested in and which existed prior to NEA.
Re: esoteric science, I’ve been wanting to have a thread on the appropriate role of government in science R&D funding. If I ever get off my ass and write up an OP, I hope you’ll participate. Presumable we are chasing a payoff for basic science R&D. At least that’s the argument I’d go for to justify it.
Re: major league sports, I’m not aware of the payoff to taxpayers ever exceeding the cost of a stadium. It sounds like a bad deal.
Now payoffs can be in forms that are not strictly monetary, so I’m sure the math is fuzzy. But if we’re going to take people’s money and borrow money that our kids will have to pay off, we should think very hard about the benefit. I bet there is a benefit to public arts funding, but I’m not convinced there always is.
In your world, one can only be exposed to such things when they are funded by the government?
I guess the government should fund movies, porn, metal music, all forms of entertainment…
There’s a “motorsports entertainment complexes” tax break, which sends millions to NASCAR each year. Army also still has a NASCAR racing team, even if they’re not sponsoring this year.
Good to know. Thanks for sharing those links.
[ul]
[li]Music classes: I’m in favor, as with education in any other subject.[/li][li]NSF: Not familiar enough with the NSF, and in particular, what “esoteric” projects they’re funding.[/li][li]Major league sports: opposed. FWIW, the rationale of supporting those subsidies is generally that it promotes economic growth, which is a valid government goal and not the same as funding arts. But I personally tend to be skeptical of the economic growth ROI, so I oppose that too.[/li][/ul]
Taxpayer money should not be used to stick a crucifix in urine.
If you want to send a message via “art”, do it on your own dime!
Here’s the 2015 Annual Report (PDF). Pages 14-15 have a breakdown of their total funds and how they were spent in broad categories, but nothing as specific as, “$2000 left under a garbage can for Banksy” or anything.
A tax break isn’t federal funding anymore than churches are federally funded because they are non-profits.
In any event, I’m generally opposed to federal funding of the arts, however it’s so low on things to care about that it doesn’t even register.
Money is fungible. There’s no difference between additional income from increased revenue vs. additional income from decreased tax payments.
That’s the typical conservative position in what is basically a no-win values-based argument, although the ideologically extremist attempt to characterize paying for any kind of government service as theft from the taxpayer deprives such an argument of any credibility it may have had.
The reality is that governments should pay for the arts for the same reason that they pay for basic education and for pure (vs. applied) scientific research, even if many conservatives see no value in anything that isn’t a factory, an oil rig, or a coal mine. It’s that there’s more to civilization than basic survival. Just like basic research provides long-term benefits to our well-being, often in very unexpected ways, and education produces a better informed and more enlightened society, the arts elevates our existence beyond the plane of mundane survival.
We benefit from and should appreciate cities with a vibrant arts community for the same reason that we benefit from cities with beautiful architecture and a balance of natural green spaces instead of dumps with smoke-belching factories. The government has a role in encouraging, regulating, and funding initiatives that advance our civilization for the common good and elevate the quality of our lives.
To the argument that these things are merely aesthetic and not essential, I submit the following. If we as a society can so organize ourselves around the non-essential that a single person is able to collect $29 million a year from our collective wallets merely for catching a ball and throwing it back – and there are hundreds just like him, don’t even get me started on what we spend on pro sports overall – then we can surely not begrudge our organized democracy funding more serious and more meaningful pursuits that contribute to the national culture just because they may have a lesser mass appeal. Mass appeal alone isn’t a measure of value, a good example of this being the extraordinarily and uniquely poor government support of public broadcasting in the US compared to other first-world democracies. Private support is sorely inadequate and the results are much to the national detriment in many areas of life including quality of governance. The ability of some endeavor to be self-funding isn’t terribly meaningful – embarrassingly awful reality TV is self-funding; live theater may not be, especially outside of major urban centers.
Yes, this is part of it, too.