Posted on 01/28/2004 8:29:35 PM PST by yonif
WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 — President Bush will seek a big increase in the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts, the largest single source of support for the arts in the United States, administration officials said on Wednesday.
The proposal is part of a turnaround for the agency, which was once fighting for its life, attacked by some Republicans as a threat to the nation's moral standards.
Laura Bush plans to announce the request on Thursday, in remarks intended to show the administration's commitment to the arts, aides said.
Administration officials, including White House budget experts, said that Mr. Bush would propose an increase of $15 million to $20 million for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. That would be the largest rise in two decades and far more than the most recent increases, about $500,000 for 2003 and $5 million for this year.
The agency has a budget of $121 million this year, 31 percent lower than its peak of $176 million in 1992. After Republicans gained control of Congress in 1995, they cut the agency's budget to slightly less than $100 million, and the budget was essentially flat for five years.
In an e-mail message inviting arts advocates to a news briefing with Mrs. Bush, Dana Gioia, the poet who is chairman of the endowment, says, "You will be present for an important day in N.E.A. history."
Mr. Gioia (pronounced JOY-uh) has tried to move beyond the culture wars that swirled around the agency for years. He has nurtured support among influential members of Congress, including conservative Republicans like Representatives Charles H. Taylor and Sue Myrick of North Carolina. He has held workshops around the country to explain how local arts organizations can apply for assistance.
Public support for the arts was hotly debated in the 1990's. Conservatives complained that the agency was financing obscene or sacrilegious works by artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. Former Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, repeatedly tried to eliminate the agency.
Some new money sought by Mr. Bush would expand initiatives with broad bipartisan support, like performances of Shakespeare's plays and "Jazz Masters" concert tours.
Mrs. Bush also plans to introduce a new initiative, "American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius." This would combine art presentations — from painting and literature to music and dance — with education programs. The program would give large numbers of students around the country a chance to see exhibitions and performances.
New York receives a large share of the endowment's grants. But under federal law, the agency also gives priority to projects that cater to "underserved populations," including members of minority groups in urban neighborhoods with high poverty rates.
The president's proposal faces an uncertain future at a time of large budget deficits.
Melissa Schwartz, a spokeswoman for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, an advocacy group, said, "We'll be fighting tooth and nail for the increase."
Some conservatives, like Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, vowed to oppose the increase. Even without support from the government, he said, "art would thrive in America."
Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a New York Democrat who is co-chairwoman of the Congressional Arts Caucus, said she was delighted to learn of Mr. Bush's proposal.
"There's nothing in the world that helps economic development more than arts programs," Ms. Slaughter said. "It was foolish for Congress to choke them and starve them. We should cherish the people who can tell us who we are, where we came from and where we hope to go."
Mr. Tancredo expressed dismay. "We are looking at record deficit and potential cuts in all kinds of programs," he said. "How can I tell constituents that I'll take money away from them to pay for somebody else's idea of good art? I have no more right to do that than to finance somebody else's ideas about religion."
The agency has long had support from some Republicans, like Representatives Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Jim Leach of Iowa.
"Government involvement is designed to take the arts from the grand citadel of the privileged and bring them to the public at large," Mr. Leach said. "This democratization of the arts ennobles the American experience."
I know. I love both you guys. Sorry for sticking my nose in the flame-fest.
...hoping the two of you finish on a good note
RL
Catch me some place else, and I'll do my best to explain what God's word says about that.....
And I'm outta here......
Not in the slightest.
I simply find it to be ample evidence of your worship of George Bush, to anyone who cares to objectively evaluate it.
If I were to state my honest opinion, I'd submit that you're a flighty little girl in a grown-up body, who thinks of matters such as these as personality contests... and that you've decided that you love and adore president Bush... so much so in fact, that he can do no wrong in your eyes.
You feel compelled to attack those who criticize him in any legitimate measure, and become so emotionally wound up in your attacks, that you unleash spittle-frothed messages of hatred and threats of bodily harm at anyone who dares question your beloved's claim to the imperial throne.
That's pretty much how I see it.
You are a sour and embittered person who never has known any amount of success and vents your frustrations with your life by assuming a superior personna on this forum, where you rudely insult anyone who doesn't conform to your particular brand of conservatism. If you are an artist, you are unsuccessful, because you have no love for humanity.
You are one of the people I would least miss should my computer fail. You are a disgrace to conservatism with your nasty attitude, and you lose people to the cause with your belligerance and insults.
How do you like those apples, jerk!
You can read my reply to OWK right above this one, and you can apply it to yourself as well.
Yeah.. we know..
You'd miss W most of all...
Blah Blah Blah.
Save it for the sewing cricle toots.
That if THESE two don't like the President, he must be doing SOMETHING right.
I don't believe I've met any two people on FR who less represent what Conservatism is all about, and who are less able to think objectively, rationally, and dispassionately.
I am PROUD to have them as my enemies.
(I think I hurt their feelings, don't you, Miss Marple? They seem really mad at me..........hehe)
Always joking, aren't you OWK. :o)
On the other hand, I honor ANYONE who served in whatever capacity. Even you.
Hmmmm... you say that you want to punch me in the face...
And I laugh...
And this indicates to you, that I am mad at you...?
No wonder you have trouble understanding your worship complex.
But he apparently only honors himself.
But you have made me laugh with your last posts to me. So thanks for that, at least.
US Army Intelligence.
Augsburg Germany
Sinop Turkey
Ft Devens Ma.
1980 -1985
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