Proposed Cuts in Federal Aid to Arts Called Ill-Advised : Funding: Head of presidential panel touts entertainment and culture as America’s second-largest export business.

Calling entertainment, arts and other cultural activities “the second-largest export business in America,” Warner Bros.’ Chairman Terry Semel on Friday told the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities that cutting arts funding is the wrong way to save money.

“Cutting these funds, which are already very small, will not solve the problem,” said Semel, co-chairman of the committee, which was making its first visit to Los Angeles. The committee hopes to encourage support for the National Endowment for the Arts and to increase private-sector support for cultural activities at a time when many members of Congress are recommending reducing or eliminating funding for the arts. The national endowment provides grant money to arts institutions such as symphony orchestras and theater companies, as well as fellowships to individual artists.

“The more funding we do, the more professionals we create,” Semel said. “These are the people who will run our arts institutions, who will become our teachers, our entertainers, our dancers and our musicians. A lot of the things that they create will some day add to our export.”

Semel suggested, however, that a debate focusing solely on the financial incentives for government arts funding may be missing the point. “If economics is not the problem, people have to speak clearly and candidly about what’s bothering them,” he said. “Is it a financial problem, or is it an issue of how those monies are spent? Is it the government or the private sector who determines whether this is acceptable art, or that is acceptable art? Let’s work on the problem, rather than hiding behind what is not the problem.”

Musician Quincy Jones, another member of the committee, said the job of the panel is to build awareness. “We do need an educated and informed citizenry; the public needs to know (more) of the art world and what it’s all about,” he said.

“A huge education is needed, starting with the artists themselves,” Jones added after the session. “I think most artists are not aware of what the whole dynamic of arts funding is all about. They don’t know what you mean when you say endowment. . . . I think a huge program is needed to bring it down to earth, just from a semantic standpoint.”

The committee, consisting of presidential appointees from throughout the country who represent the arts and humanities, includes a number of representatives of Los Angeles’ arts and entertainment worlds. Others attending Friday were Harold Williams, president and chief executive officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust, and Irene Y. Hirano, executive director and president of the Japanese American National Museum.

While Jones and Semel represented the most obvious connection between the committee and the entertainment industry, other links were pointed out: Committee member and speaker Harvey Golub of New Jersey, chairman and chief executive officer of American Express, was lauded for the company’s TV commercials featuring dancers from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which aired during the Academy Awards.