The House Just Gave the National Endowment for the Arts Its Largest Funding Bump in a Decade, Despite Trump’s Threats to Squash It

Despite the Trump administration’s repeated calls to zero out funding for the National Endowment for
the Arts (NEA), the budget passed this week in the House of
Representatives includes a bump in resources allocated to the arts
agency.

In the $1.4 trillion national budget the House approved on Monday,
the lower house of the legislature approved a budget of $162
million for the NEA. It was a rare moment of bipartisanship the
same week that Donald Trump became the third president in US
history to be impeached by that same body.

This increase of $7.25 million over last year’s budget
represents the greatest one-year bump in NEA funding in a decade,
points out advocacy group Americans for the
Arts. It’s the largest grant to the NEA in six years, Artsy reports, and an increase over the
previous year’s budget, of $155 million. (The increase outpaces
inflation; last year’s budget, corrected only for inflation, would
equal about $159 million.) The measure including domestic programs
passed 297-120 in the Democrat-controlled House.

The bill also includes increases for the Institute for Museum
and Library Services and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The Veterans Affairs Department and the Department of Defense see
increases for creative-arts therapy programs; the Department of
Justice receives increased funding for arts-based juvenile justice
programs.

This budget, whose passage avoids a government shutdown, is far
leaner than the $4.75 trillion budget the Trump administration
proposed in March—the largest in federal history—which proposed
eliminating the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities
and included modest allotments which it described as sufficient to
dismantle the agencies.

Besides proposing to eliminate funding for the arts agency,
Trump appointed a Republican strategist with
minimal experience in the arts, Mary Anne Carter, to head the
agency in 2019. Carter had been acting chairperson since the
departure of Jane Chu more than a year previously.

Even if you have no strong feelings about art, it’s hard to deny
the positive, rippling effects of funding creative endeavors.
According to a report from the NEA and the US Bureau of
Economic Analysis, issued earlier this year, the NEA contributes
more to the US economy than agriculture, transportation, or
warehousing—some $763.6 billion.

The budget now goes to the Senate for approval. The NEA did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.

The post The House Just Gave the National Endowment for the
Arts Its Largest Funding Bump in a Decade, Despite Trump’s Threats
to Squash It appeared first on artnet News.