Posted on 03/24/2018 10:24:22 AM PDT by Drango
For the second straight year, President Trump proposed to eliminate federal funding for arts programs and public media and broadcasting as part of the government's budget plan for the next year. And, for the second straight year, he failed -- and funding will actually increase for arts programs in the proposed spending bill the president signed on Friday (March 23), helping to avoid another possible government shutdown at the 11th hour.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) -- the latter of which funds public television and public radio stations -- will all receive full funding in the final version of the federal spending plan revealed this week, with the NEA and NEH each receiving $152.8 million and the CPB receiving $445 million. For the NEA and NEH, that represents a $3 million boost apiece from the prior year's budget.
The spending bill further allows $20 million for "costs associated with replacing and upgrading the public broadcasting interconnection system and other technologies and services that create infrastructure and efficiencies within the public media system." At a combined total of $465 million, the CPB's level of funding will remain flat year-over-year.
President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room at the White House Jan. 9, 2018 in Washington, DC. READ MORE Trump's Budget Plan Again Calls for Slashing Arts, Public Media Funding In February, Trump released his proposed budget for the next year, which suggested slashing the CPB's funding from $445 million down to just $15 million, which CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement at the time would "devastate, and then ultimately destroy" the organization's mission. In another statement, PBS president/CEO Paula Kerger stressed that CPB's total funding amounts to "a modest investment of about $1.35 per citizen per year."
Elsewhere in Trump's February proposal, he put forward a plan with the ultimate goal of seeing the NEA and NEH "begin shutting down," slashing funding for the NEA to $29 million and the NEH to $42 million. Last year, he proposed similar cuts to funding for the arts and public media budgets; ultimately, Congress opted to fully fund the CPB and bump funding for the NEA and NEH up $2 million apiece. With this year's budget, those programs have seen their funding increase by $5 million apiece in the two years Trump has been in office.
The spending bill, which will fund the U.S. federal government through September, passed both houses of Congress on Thursday (March 22), leaving it up to the president to sign it and keep the government open. On Friday morning, the president tweeted about possibly vetoing the spending bill over its lack of funding for his border wall and blaming democrats for their failure to include a plan to deal with the 800,000 DACA recipients.
"There are a lot of things I'm unhappy about in this bill, there are a lot of things that we shouldn't have had in this bill, but we were in a sense forced if we want to build our military," Trump said at a White House press conference on Friday afternoon, vowing to "never" sign another bill like it again.
Regardless of the tweets, Trump is still expected to sign the $1.3 trillion Omnibus spending bill, which you can pore through here.
I like to think it's Neanderthal gene.
Bolton already tricked us one with WMDs in Iraq. I’m sure he’s got a plan for Iran.
Exactly...
With our young people marching against those “nasty gun thingies” and promoting rainbow colored flags instead of opting to military service, our defense really needs a helping hand...Other countries in the world are NOT looking at us and going, “Awwww!!! How sweet!!!”
The POTUS invoked the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (a law Reagan passed) because of out of control debt and now has discretionary control of all the funds.
Watch it, buddy...
What is wrong with Ryan and McConnell? Why do they hate their base so much? Why don’t true conservative pols run them out of DC?
See post#25. Very simple explanation in layman’s terms.
I am telling it the way it is.
Yours is the correct response, as there is no realistic alternative now, nor was there once the election campaign of 2016 became a stark choice.
Let’s give Pres. Trump the space that he needs to clean up the big mess left over from the lawless Obama Administration.
I’m not aware of anybody else who could be trusted to do the job right.
They are NWO globalists.
We lost this battle but everyone is to quick to throw in he towel. Everyone is working under the assumption that Trump really is going to be Impeached by January 2019. If, however, you work with the assumption that Trump is going to do a full term then I think this is going to turn Trump HARD against the process and he will be much more willing to blow the whole thing up going forward. I may change my time if he sticks with the Iran deal because he also said of that deal he won’t renew it again. I tend to believe him when. He says this far but no farther. Let’s assume for a moment that Trump meant what he said. What happens when this comes up again in September and an election is 2 months away? He let himself no real out. They’ve been kicking the can in two month Increments. This time it was a 6 month increment. In the grand scheme of it all it’s not that big of a deal. I believe Trump is going to spend some time reading the bill, he’s going to become very angry about this and his memory won’t be short. Mattis won’t have the military veto in September. I think it’ll be a fun time and looking back this screw job will have been the catalyst
You get it!
We have lost nothing. See post#5 and others concerning this issue.
Perhaps the way you see it, but I really am not “pork and mandates”...
The poltards had to pass the $1.3T 2200+ page bill to find out what’s in it, since none of them read the entire POS.
Thanks.
Hmmm. Let’s see how this plays out. If he really does this I expect a lot of belly aching. When I start hearing complaints about this then I’ll know it’s real
The pork and mandates in the bill determined by Congress are under the President’s discretion. He can use it all for defense if he deems it fit. That is the way the law works it is not the way I see it. It is the facts.
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