Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie- 'Three Reasons Not to Fund Art with Taxes'

Source:Reason Magazine- Hippies for the public funding of the arts?

"A few weeks back, Hollywood movie stars and groups such as the Creative Coalition stormed Washington, D.C. to lobby for increased taxpayer funding of the arts. Most memorably, Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey told Hardball's Chris Matthew that Abraham Lincoln was a huge theater fan who "understood that he needed the arts to replenish his soul." (Not surprisingly, Spacey didn't mention where Lincoln was assassinated or the profession of his killer)." 

From Reason Magazine 

I'm not going make the case that if we eliminated the NEA that we could solve our massive Federal debt and Deficit by doing this, but only because I believe in math, science, and yes, reason. The NEA national budget is somewhere around a billion dollars or a few billion dollars or even under a billion dollars, in a Federal budget of 3.7T$ with a debt and deficit of 14T% and 1.8T$ respectfully. Which is peanuts compared with the rest of the Federal budget but perhaps only Washington is a billion dollars consider peanuts. 

Perhaps way, way down the road and into a very different future  down the line, I would write a blog post about why a billion dollars is considered peanuts to the U.S. Government. Besides, I'm only blogging about the NEA, because I couldn't find anything else to blog about. And just to say from the outskirts (I can't believe I just said outskirts perhaps the first time in my life) but just to say I'm all for the arts being taught in public schools and colleges, I believe this is something that should be taught. 

I love movies and have a pretty good size collection and I love blues rock music and rhythm and blues. And these artists have to learn these skills somewhere and schools are a great place to learn these skills. Besides, people almost have to be entertained to keep them as healthy as possible. Or they'll never learn anything at all and will eventually have their faces literally glued to their smartphones trying to figure out which jail or rehab the latest so-called hot celebrity is residing at. 

But we are talking about a profession here and like all other professions, the workers in them should be as successful as their skills will allow. Movies should be financially successful based on how good their movies are, with the market determining their success by how many fans they attract and how much money they make based on how many tickets they sell. Same thing with musical artists, comedians, plays, television. Instead of the entertainment industry being guaranteed revenue by taxpayers through the NEA.

I'm not for eliminating the NEA (or National Endowment for the Arts) or the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) I just don't believe the Federal Government should be funding it and that taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for it. 

If the NEA and NEH are as important to Hollywood and other aspects of the entertainment industry, the entertainment industry can fund the NEA and NEH that partially funds the arts in America. And they could fund and run the NEA and NEH a hell of a lot better than the Federal Government. (But who couldn't) Because they would have their own revenue sources and management and board of directors. 

Under private ownership and management the NEA and NEH wouldn't have the Administration and Congress to deal with any longer. They wouldn't have to worry about these people stripping or drastically cutting their funding because they would have their own revenue based on how these shows would do. And they wouldn't even have to pay Federal taxes either because they could be a private, non-profit organization that would be in the business of making sure arts education is funded properly and adequately in the country. And giving schools grants to help them pay for it.

So what I would do is make the NEA and NEH independent of the Federal Government and take away its taxpayer funding. And if the Creative Coalition and the entertainment industry as a whole feel these institutions are important enough to keep in business, then they and their customers could fund them with a fee on their tickets and profits. 

And I would go one farther and let each state have their own version of the NEA and NEH that would be run independently of the state government's, that the entertainment industry's in their states as well as their customers could fund. Again with a fee on tickets and profits.

I support arts education and believe that are schools should continue to teach them, I just don't believe that taxpayers should be forced to fund them. That the market meaning the customers should decide for themselves how much they collect in profits, by the quality of their entertainment and that taxpayers should be funding things that we have to have: schools, law enforcement, infrastructure, military, etc.