Why the NEA Deserves Full Support

Written by Gordon Davidson, artistic director, Center Theatre Group; Ernest Fleischmann, executive vice president and managing director, Los Angeles Philharmonic; Nicholas T. Goldsborough, executive vice president and chief operating officer, the Music Center Inc.; Peter Hemmings, general director, L.A. Opera; and Maurice Staples, general manager, Los Angeles Master Chorale.

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The House of Representatives may vote as early as Tuesday on whether to cut the National Endowment for the Arts’ budget by 90%, leaving only enough money to close down the agency (“NEA Funding Fight Heats Up,” Calendar, June 27). It is not surprising that we whose organizations have received federal taxpayer support through the NEA oppose this move and instead support its continuation. The proposed destruction of the NEA will have a disastrous effect on everyone in the country, and, after 30 years, there is still an urgent need for a national agency that funds the arts.

Perhaps the most damaging charge levied by NEA detractors is that the agency sponsors art that is inherently elitist and therefore an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars. This is patently untrue. The NEA is precisely the agency that makes art available to the largest spectrum of American citizens.

Yes, there was art in the United States before the NEA--but far fewer Americans had access to the arts in their own communities. The explosion of arts activity since the 1960s and the birth of state and local arts councils is rooted in the founding of the NEA. Without the NEA, the major arts institutions in the largest cities of the country will survive, albeit with severely reduced programming and the probable elimination of free concerts and public activities made possible by government support.

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Smaller community-based organizations, however, may completely vanish. Abolishing the NEA will limit arts access to those in large cities or with large wallets--truly creating an elitist arts culture in the United States.

Here at the Music Center, NEA funds have supported a wide range of artistic activity, including L.A. Opera’s education programs and free student matinees; the L.A. Philharmonic’s outreach programs, neighborhood concerts and its “Green Umbrella New Music Series”; the work of the Center Theatre Group, which includes educational programming for public schools as well as significant new theatrical works; and the myriad of touring programs for students and in-school activities offered by the Music Center’s education division. Every time you attend a performance, enter a museum or your children participate in in-school arts education, you are personally benefiting from the federal government’s support of the arts.

Despite these benefits, the attacks on the NEA continue.

Another misleading claim, for example, is the argument that abolishing the NEA will significantly impact the federal deficit. In fiscal year 1997, funding for the NEA represents just 0.01% of the federal budget. Averaged across the nation, this equals a cost of less than 35 cents per person--little more than the cost of one postage stamp.

Indeed, rather than being a drain on the national economy, the arts represent a significant boon to business here in California and across the nation. An economic analysis of the arts in California conducted by KPMG Peat Marwick LLP indicated that in 1993 arts organizations added $2.159 billion to California’s economy, created 115,000 jobs and generated $77 million in state and local tax revenues. Other national studies have indicated even more dramatic findings.

It has been well documented that arts education increases students’ self-esteem and creativity, enhances reading, writing and math skills and often reaches high-risk students who do not respond to traditional academic study. According to a report published by the College Board, students who study the arts achieve higher SAT scores and their scores increase with each additional year of study.

Closer to home, an independent analysis conducted by the Center for the Study of Evaluation from UCLA’s Graduate School of Education demonstrated that students who participate in programs offered by the various resident companies of the Music Center demonstrate generally higher academic grades, enhanced communication skills, increased classroom participation, improved study habits, cooperation, self-confidence and self-esteem than students without access to these programs.

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These arguments, however, justify the arts in purely utilitarian terms--as they stimulate economic investment, develop intercultural understanding and prepare our work force to succeed in tomorrow’s ever-changing marketplace--but say nothing about the arts’ intrinsic value for us as a country and a civilization.

The NEA is our acknowledgment as citizens of the United States that the arts have an important and meaningful place in our society. A federal agency devoted to artistic cultivation defines the arts as one of the great blessings of liberty, and our country as one to be remembered for its cultural contributions, as well as its technology and industry.

All of the great thinkers of the world have understood the value of the arts in an enlightened society, but it is most appropriate in this critical time to recall the words of John F. Kennedy, who said, “We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.” The current campaign against the NEA is nothing more than political subterfuge--a spurious and deceptive attempt to find an easy scapegoat for the greater problems facing our economy and society.

The arts will not die if there is no NEA, but they will be greatly diminished. The NEA has been a sensible public investment in good public policy. The agency has stimulated private giving. It has encouraged state and local governments to do the same. And it has become a wellspring of talent and ideas that have been central to the explosion of artistic activity over the past three decades.

Eliminating the agency will contribute virtually nothing toward balancing the budget, but it will have a devastating impact on the cultural legacy of our country.