"Hey kids! Let's put on a show!"
Posted on 05/03/2025 11:56:56 PM PDT by ransomnote
The endowment told arts organizations that it was withdrawing or canceling current grants just hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the agency in the next fiscal year.
The National Endowment for the Arts withdrew and canceled grant offers to numerous arts organizations around the country on Friday night, sending a round of email notifications out just hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the agency in his next budget.
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In Oregon, Portland Playhouse received an email from the endowment just 24 hours before opening a production of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” an acclaimed work that is part of the playwright’s series of 10 dramas about African Americans through the course of the 20th century. The N.E.A. had recommended a $25,000 grant for the show, which would have paid about one-fifth of the production’s personnel costs.
SNIP
The emails were sent to arts administrators from an address at the endowment that did not accept replies. “The N.E.A. is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the president,” the emails said. “Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A little surprised he can do these things. There is no presidential line item veto. OTOH, the way things are set up, if he is able to push these changes through, even if on the flip side, Democrats do the same thing, ending Federal cash to the right, so little funding goes to right-leaning organizations, it will be nowhere near as damaging to the GOP.
Cool. It just proves that they only run a scam to pay themselves first, then secondarily work on what they say they work on. Let’s bring back the age of the patron and let the poor artists do the work to find their own funding.
So without federal funding, art will cease to exist?
That’s a shame.
"Hey kids! Let's put on a show!"
Good. Most “arts” organizations are subversive.
Good. Most “arts” organizations are subversive.
Good. Most “arts” organizations are subversive.
There’s enough well off people to keep the so called “arts” alive...of people don’t want it,then so be it.
I believe you are correct, arts organizations, and many more institutions, are subversive not just in the sense that they are ideologically opposed to conservative truths but because they are actually subverted by foreign governments, like China.
Hollywood's cowardice in editing its movies so that no inference will appear on the silver screen that could conceivably irritate the Chinese has been well reported. In fact, the Chinese have actually engaged in hands-on censorship.
The president, by executive order, has recently sought to defund and eventually actually eliminate the Voice of America because that institution is riddled with subversive pro-Chinese elements.
It is not that these organizations are subversive in the sense that they are anti-Trump or anti-conservative values, they are subversive in the sense that they are anti-American.
‘Art’ usually devolves into propaganda anyway.
No place for government money.
NEA recommended $25,000 federal tax dollars to cover about 1/5 of the salaries for August
Wilson’s production of 10 dramas about African Americans thru the 20th century.
August Wilson’s productions are financed by his “African
American Cultural Center’s” local government tax dollars.
August Wilson African American Cultural Center (AWAACC) is financed by state tax dollars, institutional giving, corporate sponsorships, and foundation donations.
(The endowment told arts organizations that it was withdrawing or canceling current grants just hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the agency in the next fiscal year.)
Fantastic!!
Exactly.
Thank god! I’ve wanted these eliminated since I first learned of their existence about 45 years ago.
I have a degree in art. Art is something the private sector can support. Tax-payers shouldn’t have to.
Good.
The era of “largesse” - the political act of “granting” other people’s tax dollars to most favored lazy-ass unemployed “artistes” - is FINALLY coming to an end in America.
You want to do “art” for a living? Then EARN a living.
I don’t want one red cent of my or any other American’s taxes going towards ANY kind of “art”. If it doesn’t sell, said artist can starve or try living off the kindness of strangers through “only fans” or some other pseudo-prostitution site but don’t expect me or my offspring to be forced into tax debt to pay for your hobby.
37 TRILLION and counting (not counting the hundreds of TRILLIONS in unfunded mandates yet to come), the US government - ANY government - has no business whatsoever supporting those who can’t support themselves.
“series of 10 dramas about African Americans through the course of the 20th century”
…too bad so sad. Now we’ll never know what happened to AA’s.
This thread reminding me of something I had forgotten.
Before the government got to big, individual Americans were the primary fund raiser for charity, the arts, schools, and even medical research.
Many on this thread do know about polio. Consider covid and hiv combined that seemed to strike at random. It was one of the most fear disease in it’s day. A charity was set up to pay for research. It was called March of Dimes. These little cards were set up everywhere that you could slide a dime into a slot.
I am not sure just how much was raised this way, but it was people raising the money, not big daddy government.
When the first polio vaccine was available no one was forced to take the shot, people and their children lined up to get the vaccine.
Few will remember when schools were the responsibility of the local community. They would raise the funds, they would build the school house, they would find and pay the teachers and they decided what would be taught.
The American schools system began going down hill when the states and the federal government took over from the locals (all in the name of fairness).
And commercial theater, which is mostly what Broadway is.
Hard to compete in any industry with government funding (which includes nonprofit status), but take that away and people are provided what they want.
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