Tax Task: Art or Potholes?

Alec Baldwin misses the point in drawing his analogy to defense contractors giving some portion of their profits to the Defense Department to explain why the entertainment industry should not be expected to supplant federal arts funding (“Baldwin Responds to Gingrich,” April 12). The fact is that there is something approaching a national consensus for the necessity of a defense budget. There is something far less than a consensus as to the merits of giving $100 million or so to the arts.

Although I might personally choose to support the arts, and I do, it is something else to expect the average taxpayer who cannot get enough money into the public schools or get the potholes in his neighborhood streets repaired to think he should see millions of dollars or, for that matter, any amount of taxpayer money, to support arts activities that are so out of the mainstream that they can survive only with federal handouts.

Baldwin, like the rest of the entertainment establishment, is all for supporting Hollywood’s noble causes with taxpayer money. The taxpayer is saying enough is enough.

GORDON J. LOUTTIT

Manhattan Beach