>
> >Date: February 1, 1995
> >From: H-Net Central <[log in to unmask]>
>
> [420 lines: copyright by CQ; reproduced by permission from the
> publisher to H-Net; Fair Use rules apply as well]
>
> Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report cover story (Jan 28, 95)
>
> Opposing Interests Brace For a Culture Clash
> By Jon Healey
>
> As GOP considers spending cuts, horizon looks bleak
> for backers of arts, public broadcasting subsidies
>
> Patrick A. Trueman has waited a long time for this day to come.
>
> Trueman is the director of government affairs for the American
> Family Association, a group of conservative Christians founded by the
> Rev. Donald Wildmon of Tupelo, Miss. The group has been trying for five
> years to stop the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) from funding
> what it calls filth.
>
> Now the NEA is fighting for its life, or rather, its lifeblood -
> its annual federal subsidy, which amounted to $167.8 million in fiscal
> 1995. And the new Republican majorities in the House and Senate are not
> giving it much hope.
>
> "Of the 73 new Republican freshmen," Trueman said, "probably 65 of
> them oppose NEA funding altogether. . . . I don't see (the NEA)
> surviving." Last year an amendment to eliminate funding for the NEA
> fell 105 votes short of passing, while one to slash its budget by 54
> percent fell 86 votes short. (1994 Weekly Report, p. 1692)
>
> Other conservative groups are clamoring for Congress to end funding
> not only for the NEA, but also for the National Endowment for the
> Humanities (NEH), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the
> Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery. For some or all of
> these efforts, they have allies in the House in Speaker Newt Gingrich,
> R-Ga., Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-
> Texas, and Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert L. Livingston, R-
> La.
>
> The supporters of these cultural programs have mounted a heavy
> public lobbying campaign, just as they did in the face of previous
> threats to their funding during the Reagan and Bush administrations.
> And the lobbying appears to be making inroads - witness Gingrich's
> remarks at a Republican fundraiser Jan. 26. There, Gingrich said he did
> not mean to suggest that public television should be ended, he simply
> wanted to find an alternative to the taxpayer subsidy.
>
> There are at least two differences in the political landscape this
> time, though, that give the critics confidence: Republicans are in
> control of both the federal purse strings and key congressional rules,
> and the new brand of GOP leadership counts the "cultural elite" among
> its enemies, not its benefactors.
>
> The theme of this year's efforts also has shifted from that of past
> debates over the endowments. The forces who once focused their ire on
> the product of the cultural subsidies - the homoerotic exhibitions, the
> paintings of Christ with a needle in his arm - now talk first about the
> budget deficit and the need to cut spending on "frills."
>
> Some moderate and rural Republicans still break from the leadership
> to support cultural subsidies, often because they see the subsidies
> making the arts more available to their constituents. But the need for
> budget cuts is pushing more Republicans into the conservatives' corner -
> weakening support for the NEA, NEH and CPB. House members such as
> Republican John Edward Porter of Illinois, the new chairman of the
> Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, speak of
> the value of such institutions, yet question whether the country can
> still afford the $630 million they cost in fiscal 1995.
>
> "To me they're not questions of culture," Porter said in a recent
> interview. "They're questions of funding. They're questions of budgets
> and deficits."
>
> The result has been the strongest challenge to date to the federal
> government's fundamental role in cultural programs. Loosely organized,
> it is not a systematic campaign against cultural subsidies so much as a
> determined assault on the most prominent federally funded cultural
> institutions and the type of work they produce.
>
> The Broad Reach
>
> The federal government subsidizes a wide array of cultural
> pursuits, with some of the largest beginning as Great Society programs
> in the mid-1960s.
>
> At President Lyndon B. Johnson's request, Congress created the
> National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, the parent
> organization for the NEA and NEH, in 1965. The arts endowment is slated
> to receive $168 million in fiscal 1995; the humanities, $167.8 million.
>
> The original legislation (PL 89-209) lays out several
> justifications for a federal role in the arts and humanities, mainly
> based on their importance to civilization and democracy. "While no
> government can call a great artist or scholar into existence, it is
> necessary and appropriate for the Federal Government to help create and
> sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination,
> and inquiry but also the material conditions facilitating the release
> of this creative talent," it says.
>
> Funding for the endowments skyrocketed under President Richard M.
> Nixon, at the urging of White House Counsel Leonard Garment. Nixon not
> only thought the endowments were worthwhile, he also liked the irony of
> being the one to aid a cause so important to liberals, Garment said.
>
> From its creation in 1967, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
> has grown into a $2 billion enterprise. Only 14 percent, or $285
> million in fiscal 1995, of that money comes from the federal
> government, however.
>
> When it launched the CPB, Congress declared that "it is in the
> public interest to encourage the growth and development of public radio
> and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for
> instructional, educational and cultural purposes." It also asserted
> that the public had an interest in encouraging programs that took
> creative risks and addressed the need of children and minorities.
>
> Most of the federal aid to CPB goes into operating subsidies for
> public radio and television stations. Congress appropriated an
> additional $29 million in fiscal 1995 for grants to help build public
> telecommunications facilities - a subsidy that may be threatened by the
> Clinton administration.
>
> Perhaps the oldest organization receiving substantial subsidies is
> the Smithsonian Institution, a trust that was established in 1846 as a
> bequest from a British scientist. The complex, which includes 12
> museums and a zoo, has grown significantly over the years, as has the
> amount of its federal support; in fiscal 1995, Congress provided $371.8
> million, or 75 percent of the Smithsonian's operating budget.
>
> The Smithsonian's museums are not the only ones receiving federal
> aid. The National Gallery of Art, which Congress began supporting in
> the 1930s, received $53 million in fiscal 1995. The Institute of Museum
> Services, which supports museums across the country and their special
> programs, received almost $29 million.
>
> Other programs supported by the federal government range from
> cultural programs in schools to deter illegal drug use and violence,
> heritage programs for American Indians and other ethnic groups,
> regional music programs, overseas fellowship and exchange programs, and
> historical preservation efforts. A number of new programs also were
> authorized last year, including one to preserve the nation's maritime
> heritage and a New Orleans Jazz Commission and national historical
> park.
>
> Who Pays?
>
> William J. Bennett, who was President Ronald Reagan's first
> chairman of the NEH and later his secretary of Education, said that the
> endowments may have been created with a noble purpose. But "the
> question (today) is, Is the federal government the right place to do
> it?"
>
> The answer, Bennett says, is no. "One of the most important
> contributions the new Republican majority can make is to challenge a
> core assumption of this city, which is that anything in life which is
> worth doing or having demands the involvement and financial support of
> the federal government," Bennett said in testimony submitted to the
> House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee on Jan. 24.
>
> For the federal government, even a modest role in the arts and
> humanities is inappropriate and counterproductive, Bennett argued.
> Through the two endowments, he contended, the government has
> contributed to the worsening of the arts and humanities; improperly
> served as the arbiter of art and scholarship; funded "obscene,
> pornographic . . . blasphemous" and "politically tendentious" works;
> and fostered an entitlement mentality among artists and scholars.
>
> Bennett's own stance on cultural funding has shifted since the
> early 1980s, when he led the NEH. In those days, he supported the
> endowment's existence, albeit with a smaller budget and narrower
> purpose.
>
> Supporters of the endowments argue that their missteps have been
> few, albeit notorious. They also point to the way federal grants yield
> huge returns, as private corporations and foundations follow the
> federal government's lead. In 1992, for instance, the NEA awarded $123
> million in grants that helped finance arts projects worth $1.37
> billion, said Josh Dare, a spokesman for the endowment.
>
> While the NEA touts this federal "seal of approval," it epitomizes
> the politicization that government brings to culture, said Stephen
> Moore, director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute, a group
> that advocates individual liberty and limited government. "It's a
> violation of free speech. . . . It's forced speech. Taxpayers have to
> subsidize the speech of another person," Moore said.
>
> Cultural War?
>
> Lynne Cheney, Bennett's successor at the NEH, similarly has gone
> from an advocate of the NEH to a foe of the two endowments. And like
> Bennett, her objection relates in large measure to the work produced by
> federally subsidized artists and scholars.
>
> In Cheney's view, much of contemporary art and scholarship is so
> culturally damaging, the taxpayers should not be asked to support it.
> Testifying before Appropriations' Interior Subcommittee, she said that
> postmodern artists and scholars reject all standards of quality and
> aesthetics, "so major art museum shows exhibit works that are
> contemptuous of ideas like originality and formal coherence, works
> whose subjects (were) chosen to be as disgusting as possible: puddles
> of vomit, piles of excrement, photographs of corpses."
>
> The Smithsonian has run into its share of troubles recently as a
> handful of exhibits have generated a storm of protest. The most notable
> example is the proposed exhibit of the Enola Gay, the plane that
> dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, at the Smithsonian's Air and
> Space Museum. Critics of the exhibit say that it would promote a
> revisionist view of history that depicts the United States as the
> villain and Japan as the victim.
>
> Eighty-one House members have written a letter to Smithsonian
> Secretary I. Michael Heyman, demanding that the museum's director be
> fired. The institution's board of regents is expected to respond to the
> critics at its next meeting, scheduled for Jan. 30.
>
> In anticipation of this meeting, Gingrich appointed one of the
> letter's authors to the board of regents: Republican Rep. Sam Johnson
> of Texas. Johnson is a former Air Force pilot and Vietnam prisoner of
> war.
>
> Frank Hodsoll, the first NEA chief appointed by Reagan, suggested
> that good administrators can guard against objectionable grants and
> programs. Tom Kilgannon of the Christian Action Network, a conservative
> Christian group, disagreed, saying, "The weirdos and the wackos are
> going to get (grants), whether it's by mistake or by payoffs and
> patronage."
>
> Conservatives have long accused the peer-review panels that review
> grant applications for the NEA of cronyism and discrimination against
> traditional artists. Bennett goes a step further, saying that there is
> a disturbing elitism built into the process. By taking tax dollars from
> the public and giving them to a panel to spend on art for the country,
> Bennett says, the NEA is telling ordinary citizens that they aren't
> capable of deciding for themselves what arts to support.
>
> A related complaint by some conservatives is that the federal
> cultural subsidies in general benefit mainly the "cultural elite." For
> example, Nancy Mitchell of the Citizens for a Sound Economy told
> Appropriations' Interior Subcommittee on Jan. 11 that blue-collar
> workers make up just 7 percent of the audience for art museums.
>
> Like critics of the endowments, opponents of the CPB focus on what
> they find to be offensive in its programming. Tim Graham of the
> conservative Media Research Center, a group that has tried to point out
> liberal bias in the mass media, said, "Conservatives here feel a
> greater sense of offense because this is their viewpoint and their
> politicians being demeaned with their money. . . . We don't care so
> much if public television is biased if we're not paying for it."
>
> This allegation comes from the conservative Republican wing
> represented by Gingrich and commentator Pat Buchanan, not the moderates
> who have supported the endowments and the CPB over the years. It
> reflects the longstanding tension between social conservatives, who
> have used issues such as funding for so-called offensive artists to
> build their base, and the members whose conservatism is confined
> largely to fiscal issues.
>
> The enormity of the deficit could bring those two camps together.
> In fact, even supporters of the endowments say they do not expect to
> avoid cuts; rather, they want to avoid being "zeroed out."
>
> To Democratic Rep. Sidney R. Yates of Illinois, an appropriator and
> longtime supporter of the endowments, the budget deficit is just a
> smoke screen. This year's battle is just the latest in the long-running
> "cultural war" between conservatives and liberals, a fight that
> conservatives see as a defense of what they call traditional American
> values.
>
> The Free Market's Tastes
>
> Bennett and other conservatives argue that private groups do not do
> more in the cultural arena because the government does it for them.
> Another effect of the subsidies, they say, is that they diminish the
> power of the public to influence the direction of culture.
>
> Those are two of the central arguments for privatizing the CPB and
> eliminating cultural subsidies. The free market, not federal
> appointees, should decide which artists, filmmakers and broadcasters to
> sustain and reward.
>
> One argument against privatization, said the NEA's Dare, is that
> the not-for-profit arts have relied throughout history on government
> support. "If we rely on market forces, we are not going to get the kind
> of arts that would endure through the years," he said.
>
> Nor would private dollars be able to take the place of federal
> subsidies in small towns and rural areas, where the markets may not be
> large enough to support the arts, said NEA Chairman Jane Alexander.
> Cutting off federal subsidies also could spell doom for small public
> broadcasting stations, supporters of the CPB say.
>
> Larry Pressler, R-S.D., chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science
> and Transportation Committee, says that several private
> telecommunications companies have told him that they want to fill in
> for the CPB in support of public broadcasting. Besides, Pressler said
> in a Senate speech Jan. 24, the great expansion of broadcast television
> and other media outlets, such as cable and satellite television, have
> eliminated the media scarcity that was the original justification for
> the CPB.
>
> One of the main differences between public broadcasting and
> commercial stations is the absence of overt commercial pitches. While
> its supporters say this is one of the beauties of non-commercial
> television, Graham of the Media Research Center said it is another form
> of elitism.
>
> "Public television is television for people who hate television.
> The NEA becomes a bastion for people who hate anything the corporations
> could support. . . . What's inside that shell is the nut, 'We're
> unpopular and we know it. We can't survive in the marketplace because
> nobody will like us,' " he said.
>
> Supporters of the endowments and the CPB counter that they are
> decidedly not elitist. The programs serve the exact opposite function,
> they say - to increase access to the arts and humanities in areas that
> do not otherwise have the resources, and to expand culture beyond the
> ranks of the well-to-do.
>
> To support this argument, the NEA notes how artistic and cultural
> groups have multiplied in the 30 years since the endowments were
> established. The number of state and territorial arts agencies has
> grown from five to 56, the number of theater, dance and opera
> companies from 120 to more than 925, and the number of orchestras from
> about 100 to more than 230. This growth, agency supports say, is the
> fruit of the NEA's "seed money."
>
> With the increase in numbers has come an increase in access to the
> arts throughout the country. Actor Charlton Heston, a longtime advocate
> of federal arts subsidies, noted that the theater industry used to
> exist only in a small section of New York City. Regional theaters now
> can be found throughout the country, he said, adding, "The regional
> theater is one of the spectacular successes of the NEA."
>
> Critics of the federal subsidies complain that rather than flowing
> out to rural and neglected areas, the dollars have been concentrated in
> the cities already rich in the arts. Republican Rep. Philip M. Crane of
> Illinois pointed to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
> in Washington, D.C., which received $10.3 million in fiscal 1995, as an
> example of how the entire nation is forced to subsidize cultural events
> attended only by people in the capital.
>
> Noting all the roads and bridges built with public funds, Dare
> said, "Not everything that your tax dollars go for you will use. . . .
> But if we all pay collectively for things that we all agree are
> universally beneficial, then there will be opportunities for those
> things that you're interested in."
>
> John H. Hammer of the National Humanities Alliance, a coalition of
> groups involved in scholarship and preservation, noted that one of the
> NEH's major ongoing projects is making digital copies of books to
> retain their text after their paper crumbles from age.
>
> Private industry cannot be relied on to preserve the nation's
> cultural heritage in general, Hammer said. Nor is there much private
> support today for many areas of scholarship that the NEH supports and
> brings to the general public, he argued.
>
> A Different Ballgame
>
> Supporters of cultural programs have faced similar criticism and
> attacks before. In 1981, for example, Reagan proposed to cut the
> budgets for NEA and NEH by 50 percent. The effort was undermined,
> however, by an administration task force led by Heston, which concluded
> that federal funding should be sustained.
>
> At the hearing Jan. 24, Heston said to Yates, "We've been down this
> road before, have we not?"
>
> Actually, the road has changed significantly since 1981, as
> illustrated by one of the men sitting to Heston's left: freshman
> Republican Rep. George Nethercutt of Washington state. With Heston's
> high-profile help, Nethercutt ousted the Democratic incumbent, former
> House Speaker Thomas S. Foley, in one of the signal victories in the
> Republicans' move from minority to majority.
>
> In recent fiscal years, Democrats have been able to steer money to
> the endowments through the annual Interior appropriations bills even as
> Republican critics stopped the endowments from being reauthorized. With
> the help of the Democratic controlled Rules Committee, the NEA's allies
> in the House simply waived the rule against sending money to
> unauthorized agencies in fiscal 1994 and 1995.
>
> Now, Appropriations' Interior Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Regula, R-
> Ohio, says the Rules Committee will not lift a finger to help the
> endowments if they are not reauthorized. The key battles over the NEA,
> the NEH and the federal museum subsidies will be fought in the
> authorizing committee - Economic and Educational Opportunities, led by
> Bill Goodling, R-Pa.
>
> The NEA and NEH appears to be in particularly tough shape there, as
> Republican members ponder the appropriate federal role in a time of
> limited dollars. That leaves supporters of the endowments and possibly
> the museums looking to the Senate for help. Senate appropriators are
> not so dependent on authorizations, and the authorizing committee -
> Senate Labor and Human Resources - is not so eager to slash the
> endowments.
>
> Still, the Republicans' desire to balance the budget is no less
> strong in the Senate than the House. The Senate also is home to Jesse
> Helms, R-N.C., who led efforts in the late 1980s and early 1990s to
> trim the NEA and stop funding for "offensive" art. His efforts met with
> limited success then, but the last election made both the Senate and
> the Republican caucus more conservative and less friendly to the
> endowments.
>
> For his part, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici, R-
> N.M., said the question of cultural subsidies is just one of many that
> lawmakers ought to be asking, adding, "I don't know that that's more
> fundamental than any other."
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--
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Susan V. Richards E-mail: [log in to unmask]
History Department
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
=============================================================================
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