Funding the Arts: Who Should Pay?

* Congratulations to the Times Orange County Edition for having the courage to provide their readers with a common sense, conservative, family values columnist, Kenneth L. Khachigian.

The April 13 article, “Solution to Arts Funding Is in the Stars,” makes the case clear for any thinking, concerned parent and taxpayer that we should eliminate the hundred million dollars of taxpayer money that’s being squandered on the National Endowment for the Arts.

I can assure Alec Baldwin that I have seen his last movie. He may be a great actor, but in real life, he’s no Oscar winner. I am “one of them” in the Republican Party whom Alec calls “rotten, nasty, horrible human beings.”

Alec, get your money out and give it to the NEA. No longer should Republicans or Democrats give any money in support of the NEA. Congress should support the creation of a National Creative Arts Foundation that would be a nonprofit entity, funded through tax-deductible donations on a voluntary basis and not on a rip-off basis like the NEA is supported today.

HAROLD EZELL

Newport Beach

* The Times Orange County Edition’s new columnist, Kenneth L. Khachigian, is way off base on his very first column.

His concept that the federal government should cease funding the National Endowment for the Arts because the motion picture industry spends money lavishly shows just how out of touch he is.

In his haste to put a negative light on the motion picture industry, he completely disregards the beneficiaries of the NEA--community museums and theaters all over the nation, and therefore the American people.

His statement, “Let it (a new National Creative Arts Foundation) be funded through private donations by those already in the artistic arena” illustrates his blatant lack of understanding of the arts community and its contributions to American life.

Let’s hope that the space he will be taking up every two weeks in subsequent editions is better thought out.

MARTIN A. BROWER

Corona del Mar