White House Cites Problems in Arts Grants

The White House acknowledged problems today in the award of grants by the National Endowment for the Arts, indicating a need to reform review procedures that have led to federal support for “obscene material.”

Citing descriptions in The Washington Times of three sexually explicit NEA-supported theater projects, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater noted each had gone through “the entire review process” and said, “If you read these, something’s wrong.”

“Our interest is not in any kind of censorship and it’s not in restricting the thousands and thousands of good projects,” he said. “Our point is that for each dollar of money available for the arts, there are hundreds of good projects and they ought to be funded.”

The NEA issue came up at a morning meeting between President Bush and GOP congressional leaders, after which Fitzwater reported agreement on “the need to speak out against subsidies by federal taxpayers for this kind of art.”

While efforts to impose restrictions on NEA grant decisions has evoked protests from some members of the arts community, Fitzwater asserted: “It has nothing to do with censorship. It has everything to do with subsidies.”

Fitzwater said Bush still wants to see Congress pass “a clean extension” of the NEA’s authority, without curbs on its funding decisions. “We also feel that we cannot--should not--provide federal subsidies for this kind of obscene material.”