Heritage Foundation

Regarding Knight’s remarks: It is clear that with a $3-trillion debt and constant budget shortfalls our national family cannot afford to fund such a clearly non-essential program as the National Endowment for the Arts, whether the artists are obscene or not.

It is folly to argue about funding for programs we simply cannot afford, especially for projects with such limited value as the arts, which are nothing more than entertainment for the wealthy.

Anyone who has a budget that results in personal income dropping below expenditures knows that a frivolous non-essential such as entertainment is the first budget allowance to face the ax, unless the person concerns himself less with bankruptcy and the importance of meeting his financial obligations than frivolity.

GLENN A. RODGERS

Whittier