In my last blog, I chatted about choral arts in America in a very broad sense. In later blogs I will write more about the findings of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Chorus America study results.
Those results can, and hopefully are, being used to advocate the position that all performing arts has a rightful place in our society and that public funds (tax dollars) should be used to underpin the industry. There is solid evidence that the return on the investment trumps the rhetoric that the dollars spent on the arts is to make us all feel good. That too does not seem to preclude us, as a society, from utilizing tax based sources to at least partially fund activities that reach out to the masses. Of particular import is that segment of our society that is not exposed to the fine and performing arts.
My life is better because of the arts. The performing arts helped lift me from certain generational poverty or at least a marginalized life. Perhaps I am more naïve than I thought or perhaps it is because I was fortunate enough to be exposed to the arts very early or perhaps it is even because I was taught by my Mother that adage that we treat others how we want to be treated. I have always thought that one of the core components of American society was that we are to take care of those with less than ourselves. Care beyond food, shelter, and education—care for the spirit.
Just because we cannot measure everything in terms of return on investment does not devalue its worth.
Being careful to not overstate the situation, the American performing arts industry sits on a precipice. Recent history has revealed disturbing results.
Kansas and Texas
Kansas is now the only American state without a state arts agency.
The elimination of the Kansas Arts Commission through a line-item veto by Governor Sam Brownback now removes available matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mid-America Arts Alliance. According to David Hudnall of The Pitch, Kansas has a $13.8 billion state budget. Of that total, .005 percent was earmarked for the Kansas Arts Commission.
It is difficult in this instance to understand the motivation for this extraordinary cut. Jobs will be lost. Economic returns from arts organization spending will evaporate. Rural communities will be especially hard hit. Unemployment filings will increase. The reputation of Kansas will be sullied. Could it be that Hudnall’s observations about Brownback’s political aspirations (Brownback is a Republican) have him playing to the most base of his political party? His motivation may not be what is best for all Kansans but what is best for Sam Brownback’s purported bid to become president.
My home-state of Texas is not fairing much better.
Governor Rick Perry (a Republican and possible presidential candidate) vowed, in his State of the State address, to suspend funding for the Texas Commission on the Arts for two years—a certain long term death knell.
He stated his goal despite the facts supplied by the Texas Cultural Trust:
• $4.5 billion generated annually in taxable sales by Texas arts and cultural industries.
• 80 percent of Texas economic development professionals surveyed said the arts are important to companies looking to expand or relocate in Texas.
• 700,000 employees in Texas work in creative jobs with an average wage of $70,000.
• 1 in 15 workers in Texas are employed in creative sector jobs.
In a sad commentary on the political climate in Texas and in an effort at preventing agency elimination, the Texas Commission on the Arts found itself advocating for a budget reduction of its own budget of fifty-three percent—more than the legislative recommended fifty percent.
In an effort to close the $25 billion (give or take a few billion dollars) budget gap and pass a state budget, the Texas legislature remains in special session. Governor Perry has yet to sign the nearly $84 billion proposed state budget.
He has line-item veto so stay tuned.
Matt
http://www.pitch.com/2011-06-09/music/kansas-arts-commission-sam-brownback/
http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/05-05-11-sentate-hope-texas-arts-commission-advocates-a-53-percent-cut-in-its-own-budget-to-survive/
www.txcutluretrust.org
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