Is it a coincidence that NEA stands for both National Endowment for the Arts and National Education Association? The right wingers hated both groups equally in the 1980's, as I recall.

I'm sure my grandkids will be thrilled to pay off the money borrowed to fund the hack crap that passes for art when the government is funding it.

As long as we get more Mapplethorpe.

$$ for arts good if spread to teach lots of kids about arts, for paint and stuff.

$$$$$$$ for arts bad if spread in huge lump sums to "artists" to make cut up fighter jets and other junk.

As Barack Hussein Obama signs the porkulous package and the markets tank in the process, I have one question for those who voted for Obama and the Democrats:

Did you really think the party most responsible for this crisis, the Democrat Party, would do anything other than make it worse?

Here's the solution. It's always the solution:

Cut capital gains and the upper marginal tax rates and the recovery will begin instantly.

It happened with Reagan in 1981 and it pulled us out of the Carter recession, and again with Bush in 2001 and 2003, which pulled us out of the Clinton recession.

If that happened, every last dollar of mine would go back into the stock market. As it is, we just have to short the market, buy gold, and wait out this incompetent competent Congress until 2010 when we can replace them with tax cutting conservatives, and then 2012 when we can replace this incompetent Marxist Barack Hussein Obama with the jewel of the conservative movement:

Sarah Palin!

100 years from now, would you rather look back on the USA of 2010 and say "wow, I sure am glad they paved all those roads" or "wow, I sure am glad they encouraged and promoted art"? I, for one, hope it is art.

In the long term, a society is remembered for the culture it cultivated, not its pavement.

#5 Keep hiding behind your pathetic ideology, putz.

6
M O R O N

6

Kindly cite one artistic product funded by the Federal Government that will be remembered as notable in one year, let alone 100.

@9:

Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation - to support national tour

Boston Ballet - to support production of George Ballanchine's "Jewels".

Cunningham Dance foundation - to support creation of a new work by Merce Cunningham

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts - to support the presentation of "Modern Masters", celebrating the work of America's leading contemporary choreographers. The companies featured will be Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Mark Morris Dance Group, Limón Dance Company, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and Paul Taylor Dance Company.

Copper Canyon Press - to support the publication, promotion, and national distribution of books of poetry. Proposed authors include Jim Harrison, Gregory Orr, Alberto Ros, Benjamin Alire Senz, and Chase Twichell.

American Symphony Orchestra - to support the presentation of U.S. premieres, rarely performed works by established composers, and related educational activities. Plans include performances of works by composers Paul Ben-Haim, George Whitefield Chadwick, Paul Dessau, Hanns Eisler, Siegfried Matthus, Odeon Partos Mordecai Seter, Erich-Walter Sternberg, William Grant Still, Josef Tal, Edgard Varese, Rudolf Wagner-Regeny, and Udo Zimmermann.

Boston Symphony Orchestra - to support the world premire performances of a new work by composer Gunther Schuller. In celebration of the orchestra's 125th anniversary, four performances of Where the Word Ends will be presented with related educational activities.

Jazz at Lincoln Center - to support a series of six distinct concert programs by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra under the direction of founding artistic director Wynton Marsalis. The performances will feature distinguished guest musicians including 2006 NEA Jazz Master Chick Corea (piano) and John McLaughlin (guitar) who will make their Fredrick P. Rose Hall debut.

Kronos Quartet - to support a collaboration, commission, and performances by the Kronos Quartet. Plans include a collaboration with pipa virtuoso Wu Man for a staged work and a commissioned work by jazz pianist Maria Schneider.

Monterey Jazz Festival - to support the 52nd Monterey Jazz Festival at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. Renowned and emerging jazz artists will perform at the 2009 festival, including a commissioned artist and the artists-in-residence.

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival - to support the 37th annual Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. The festival will include a diverse range of repertoire, guest composers, and world premieres, as well as free community and youth concerts.

Van Cliburn Foundation - to support the American Composers Invitational, a project which commissions new works for solo piano. Participating pianists will perform the new works during the biennial Van Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth.

National Alliance for Musical Theatre - to support the 21st annual Festival of New Musicals and Fall Conference. The festival and conference will bring together musical theater writers and industry professionals with the goal of developing and nurturing new musicals.

Village Theatre - to support the development and production of Stunt Girl, a new musical by lyricist/book writer Peter Kellogg and composer David Friedman. The piece will tell the story of the adventurous life of Nelly Bly (1864-1922), New York's first female reporter, world traveler, and captain of industry.

- that's just a more-or-less random sampling of recipients for the 2009 "Access To Artistic Excellence" grants, which are awarded annually by the NEA.

I can pretty much guarantee that anything on this list will most certainly be remembered for far, far longer than anyone will remember you.

10
There are some impressive names on the list.
I would have thought they could manage without taxpayer subsidy.
The economy is going to get worse before it gets better.
You can rest assured the next 'stimulus' (and there will need to be a next, if we can find anyone to loan us another $800 billion) won't include arts money.
But not to worry.
when historian from 2109 look back to our time it won't be to talk about ballet.
How many acts from 1929 can you name?

@6: Yeah, it's a real shame the Romans built all of those roads. Everybody stopped using that shit the second that the Goths sacked the capital.

Oh wait.

Giving artists money means they will be spending some of that cash in the community and providing a little money to other people.
And in many cases NEA funding also provides arts funding to kids that might not ever get any exposure to art. Most countries in the Industrialized world are willing to spend the money to expose school children to art; along with math, science and literature. It would seem a true shame if we weren't willing to invest in a well-rounded education for public school students.

@11:

One of the reasons such "impressive names" receive taxpayer subsidies is so that they can make a point of keeping ticket prices low enough that taxpayers can see their performances; in many cases, such funding goes toward subsidizing performances and exhibitions for school kids that are either heavily discounted or even free.

When historians from 2109 look back on our time they'll talk about all sorts of things, including art, politics, economics, technology, government et al because those subjects collectively comprise what is more commonly referred to as "civilization". What they most definitely will NOT talk about is you, since you're name won't reside on anything even of the smallest importance outside of your IRS records by that time.

Lessee, artists/acts from 1929. Shit, that isn't even a challenge:

The Marx Brothers

Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy

Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Thomas Hart Benton

Robert Frost

Frank Lloyd Wright

Eugene O'Neill

William Saroyan

John Steinbeck

Buster Keaton

T.S. Eliot

Edward Hopper

Jelly Roll Morton

Blind Lemon Jefferson

Sinclair Lewis

Fats Waller

Greta Garbo

Dorothy Parker

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cole Porter

Al Jolson

E.E. Cummings

Josef Albers

George S. Kaufman

George & Ira Gershwin

Irving Berlin

Mary Pickford

and of course, my personal favorite Louise Brooks

- and those are just off the top o' me head.

@15
That list made me smile.

Politics and legislation reduces people to statistics and numbers. Art raises us up back to human beings.

Besides, Lighting technicians and carpenters, house managers and trucking companies all benefit from the (relatively quite small) AEA boost as well as the poets and singers.

The Arts in this country create $165 billion dollars of economic activity and supports nearly five million jobs (see how busy your local restaurants and bars would be without the neighborhood theater, galleries, ballet or symphony). $50 million dollars would make more sense given to the arts that it would for alot of other things (like tax cuts for the wealthy which, hmmm, haven't prevented the depression that we are in now.)

15
chris, how many of these were on the government dole?

@18:

Since you persist in beating your dead horse of an argument, here is a brief listing of Famous American Artists who were "on the government dole" you so obviously disdain during the years of the WPA. They represent just a small percentage of the literally tens of thousands of professional artists employed by the five "Federal One" projects during the Great Depression:

Conrad Aiken
Saul Bellow
Thomas Hart Benton
Paul Robeson
John Cheever
Joseph Cotton
Howard Da Silva
Burt Lancaster
Sidney Lumet
Adolph Gottlieb
Nikolai Sokoloff
E.G. Marshall
Arthur Miller
Ralph Ellison
Orson Welles
Lee Krasner
John Steinbeck
John Gavin
Jacob Lawrence
May Swenson
Will Geer
Jackson Pollock
Studs Terkel
John Houseman
Mark Rothko
Elia Kazan
Marc Blitzstein
Arthur Arent
Vivian Vance
Mark Tobey
Jack Albertson

I fully realize how galling it must be for you to learn that government, when it is well-run and responsive to the needs of its citizens, can actually HELP people, since you apparently seem to believe that government is inherently evil and unproductive (and after eight years of an incompetent administration, I can certainly understand how one might develop such an attitude), but there you have it.