Relief Appears Likely for NEA

As the latest battle over the future of the National Endowment for the Arts looms, supporters and even a fierce critic of the 33-year-old agency are predicting that it once again will escape the Republican chopping block.

“Unfortunately, I think the agency will rise from its ashes,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), an NEA foe. He recently derided as “absolutely disgusting” many of the artworks the agency has helped fund and is among those wanting it to receive essentially a “close-out” budget.

“I believe that members of Congress are so intimidated by the NEA and the arts supporters that they will let it live,” Kingston added.

In fact, 28 House Republicans have signed a letter to Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) expressing concern about the latest bid to effectively kill the NEA. They stop short in the letter--to be delivered to Gingrich on Monday--of committing themselves to opposing the effort. But given the party’s slim majority in the House, opposition from most of them could thwart the proposed budget cut.

Additionally, the NEA received a surprise boost earlier this week when Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.), who once joined Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) in attacking the agency, vowed to fight for its survival.

At a news conference on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, D’Amato blasted the proposed 90% budget cut the NEA is facing. “The health and vitality of the arts community must be nurtured . . . and now is not the time to turn our backs on it,” said D’Amato, whose state is the largest recipient of NEA grants.

In 1989, D’Amato took the Senate floor to attack a photograph by NEA-supported artist Andres Serrano that showed a crucifix submerged in urine. He objected to the use of federal money for “such trash.”

The immediate battleground for the NEA is in the House, where last week the Appropriations Committee voted to follow a subcommittee recommendation to slash the agency’s budget for the next fiscal year from the current $99.5 million to $10 million. Both NEA supporters and critics view such a cut as a prelude to eliminating the agency next year.

Effectively phasing out the NEA would follow the serious blow it was dealt last year when Republicans succeeded in cutting its budget by more than $35 million, significantly reducing its grant money.

The funding for the NEA is included in a larger bill appropriating money for a variety of federal agencies. Democrats failed in their attempts to raise the NEA appropriation back to $99.5 million in both the subcommittee and the full committee, but they remain confident that they will succeed when the measure goes before the full House, perhaps as soon as next week.

Rep. Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill.) and Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) are leading the effort to maintain the agency’s budget at its current level, and both expect virtually all House Democrats to support them. Their success probably depends on how many of the 28 Republicans who signed the letter to Gingrich join in.

One who already has is Rep. Michael P. Forbes (R-N.Y.), who said: “To be honest with you, I think we have a very good chance of restoring the money.”

Forbes said that in last week’s Appropriations Committee vote, several Republicans voted against maintaining NEA’s current funding out of loyalty to the panel’s chairman, Rep. Robert L. Livingston (R-La.), a staunch agency foe. But when the bill goes to the floor, these Republicans will be more “likely to defect,” Forbes said.

If the attempt to restore the agency’s budget fails in the House, the agency’s supporters will next carry their fight to the Senate and, ultimately, to President Clinton.

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), who intends to break with the GOP leadership and support the NEA’s current funding, speculated that if the bid fails, “I think the Senate will keep it in [its version of the spending bill], and I suspect [Clinton] will insist on it.”

Indeed, in a letter sent to Livingston before the appropriations panel met, Clinton’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Franklin D. Raines, said, “The administration strongly objects to the subcommittee’s drastic reduction in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.”

“The president’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill if this funding level were to remain,” the letter continued.

That could present Clinton with a tough choice, because a veto would affect funding for the other agencies covered by the measure. It would also, however, partly restore his credibility in the arts community, which was damaged last year when the administration was unable to prevent the NEA’s severe budget cut.