A Modest Proposal

Re: “NEA Funding Fight Heats Up” (June 27): So, Rep. Robert Livingston (R-La.) decries the NEA as “elitist” and suggests that those wealthy actors who speak in favor of NEA funding could fund it themselves. Great idea! And while we’re at it, why spend tax dollars on libraries, with so many elitist books? Rich writers could pay for them! Rich historians could fund the Smithsonian! And why didn’t we think to ask rich war veterans to pay for the Vietnam War Memorial?

NEA opponents evidently feel they shouldn’t have to pay for any government service they don’t like or use, and they sound so self-righteous while trying to lead us all down such a very slippery slope.

DON ZIPPERMAN

Sherman Oaks

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While Congress decimates funding for the NEA, the Italian government celebrates the reopening of its Borghese Museum, funded in part by the Italian government, which has recently increased its spending for arts and culture.

Once history turns its gaze to this time, it will show the Italian government preserved a lasting art, while the greatest nation on Earth, as Congress is fond of saying, creates only laws but does not celebrate its country’s richness. This puritanical and prudish Congress turns its back on art, music and the cultures of this land. Regardless of Congress’ attitude, we go to museums; we attend concerts, opera and ballet; we travel the world for architecture. We want to see and experience lasting works of art, many supported by the government. The laws of the land change, are mutable and are for the present. The arts of the land are steadfast in their truth and speak to the present, past and future.

MATTHEW HETZ

Los Angeles