I think that your response is quite cogent re: state vs.
          federal funding for the arts, even quoting homeboy T.
          O'Neill. And for all I know, you may well be right. But
          imagine the scenario of block grants to the states, by
          population, or some such formula. These block grants are
          distributed to the State Council on the Arts for whatever
          purposes they consider to be more compelling. They would
          then find the programs that would be likely to be most
          successful in their own states, which would, in theory, be
          more likely to protect them from drastic funding cuts.
 
          The only thing that I can say about Dukakis vs. Weld is that
          Cuomo was NYS' most unsympathetic governor for arts funding.
          He turned a deaf ear to all economic arguments, making the
          analogy that arts funding is like a fur coat for a woman
          when the family can't afford rent. His Republican
          predecessors were much more supportive, even Hugh Carey! let
          alone Rockefeller. Cuomo cut NYSCA's budget by something
          like a third. And this is a state where the arts are as
          important to the economy as agriculture is in Kansas!
 
          The thing I like about my plan is that it is a "sop" to the
          states rights prejudices of the new Congress, and it might
          actually be beneficial to the states and (gasp) artists! I
          think that we should be past the point where states rights =
          institutionalized racism. That is a holdover from the
          (admittedly recent) period between 1864 and the 1960's.
          But, that is a whole other spiel.
 
          Eric Siegel
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