NEA Funding Fight Heats Up

The House Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to decimate the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts, setting the stage for the latest showdown between the agency’s defenders and detractors that have occurred since Republicans took control of Congress in 1994.

The appropriations panel accepted a subcommittee recommendation to reduce the NEA’s annual budget by roughly 90%--to $10 million for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, compared with this year’s operating budget of $99.5 million.

The push for the drastic reduction reflects the continuing determination of many House Republicans to shut down the arts agency, which they consider an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars. But approval of Thursday’s action by the House committee by both houses of Congress is far from assured. And President Clinton has promised to veto the budget bill if it reaches his desk in its current form.

Clinton has requested a $136-million budget for the NEA. Funding for the arts endowment is part of a larger bill determining the budget levels for a variety of federal agencies that the committee was working on Thursday. NEA supporters on the panel proposed an amendment to maintain its funding at the current level, but that was defeated, 31-28.

The overall appropriations bill next moves to the Rules Committee, and is expected to reach the House floor in mid-July.

In response to the GOP effort to extinguish the NEA, which currently is headed by actress Jane Alexander, luminaries from the arts and entertainment communities have rushed to its defense. But increasingly, Republican leaders have sought to use the agency’s celebrity-backing against it.

“Every person that gets up before the Academy Awards [show] every single year saying how important it is for United States taxpayers to pay for the arts could collectively fund this project,” Rep. Robert L. Livingston (R-La.), the chairman of the appropriations panel, said Thursday during the budget debate.

Money for the NEA, he added, represents use of “taxpayers’ dollars . . . for elitist purposes.”

The agency, created in 1965 during the Johnson administration, has long been a red cloth for many Republicans offended by some art exhibitions and performance art funded in the past by the agency that have included religious, political and sexual content.

During Thursday’s debate, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) chided the agency for funding art that “is absolutely disgusting.”

But the bulk of the NEA’s grants, as its defenders note, go to much less controversial projects and organizations. In Los Angeles, for instance, institutions that get funding from the NEA include the American Film Institute, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

“The NEA has a shining record of achievement,” said Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill.). He contended that fewer than 50 NEA grants out of more than 100,000 it has awarded over the years have caused controversy. He also compared the agency’s current $100-million annual budget to the cost “of a tail fin of a B-52 bomber.”

“We can’t really say that we cannot afford $100 million,” he said.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) added: “We do less for the arts than almost any other country in the world--it’s embarrassing.”

Undaunted by Thursday’s vote, Alexander said, “This process is far from over, as we now move toward a vote in the full House, then on to the Senate. The key to our survival will be our strong bipartisan support, not just on Capitol Hill but all across the country.”