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May 21, 2009

Arts Funding Slashed in Economic Crunch

But when children in my home state are going to bed hungry, maybe it's for the best.

Elrena Evans

Child_painting-Walker-1941a.gif
Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Senate approved state budget SB 850, which includes severe reductions in funding for the arts for the upcoming fiscal year. The budget, which passed by a 30-20 vote, cuts funding for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts from $15 million to zero - effectively eliminating all monies designated for arts and culture grants throughout the state. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission suffered similarly, in a move that could affect not only museums and historical societies but some public television programs as well.

In a bleak economy, budget cuts are a necessity - but from the arts? Even aside from a philosophical belief that art benefits a society and its citizens, such drastic cuts will inevitably mean massive layoffs for those who work in the arts sector if the House passes the bill.

Zero is a shock-value word, and I did indeed feel shock as I read reports of the Senate's decision. I don't want to see my state's arts and culture budgets slashed. Yet in a state where 16.8 percent of all children live below the poverty level - a number that climbs to nearly one-third of children in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and in several rural counties - I have to question if money spent on the arts is the best allocation of resources.

Muslih-uddin Sadi, a 13th-century Persian poet, said that if all he owned was two loaves of bread, he would sell one loaf and buy hyacinths to feed his soul. I love hyacinths, and I love the idea of feeding my soul, but I can't help wonder if Muslih-uddin Sadi was very hungry when he wrote that - or if, indeed, he had ever been very hungry.

Christine A. Scheller recently wrote about the high infant mortality rate in this country, a rate directly linked to maternal poverty. I can't quite wrap my mind around our country's infant mortality rate, any more than I can process a third of Philadelphia's children living in poverty. I look at my daughter's Sunday school class and try to imagine a third of them going home to inadequate housing, going to bed hungry. I can't do it. If it's fund the arts or feed the kids, I'm going to vote for the kids every time - which isn't to say that cuts in the arts budget will correspond to increased funds for hungry children. It's only to say that, quite simply, there isn't enough money for everything and difficult decisions must be made.

Pennsylvania isn't the only state slashing funding for the arts - Florida, Utah, and Michigan are looking at similar cuts, just to name a few. As the economy continues to tighten the proverbial purse strings, more cuts will almost surely follow.

So, what do you think? Fund the arts? Feed the kids? How should we decide where to make necessary cutbacks in an ailing economy?

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty on May 21, 2009 8:41 AM

Comments

It shouldn't be either or. And to make it either or is a false dichotomy. Arts need to be taught particularly in poor schools where students are not exposed to them. Arts are not merely an expression of culture, they help students think about the world around them learn how to express themselves in that world. Arts teach our students, especially those that learn in artistic methods, in ways that you cannot teach through lecture methods. Students learn differently, and if you ignore the arts then you will ignore all the students that learn through the arts.

A recent study said that for every student that drops out of high school there was an additional $160k in government spending (not including lack of tax revenue) over their life that would not be spent if they had graduated. How many students that if engage in the arts and graduated would we need to justify the spending?

Posted By: Adam S | May 21, 2009 11:39 AM

To compare arts funding with funding for hunger is an unbalanced way of looking at a solution to hunger. How about taxing professional sports teams to acquire funds from the massive amounts spent on entertainment such as at halftimes? I am sure there are many programs and businesses that are subsidized by the government that need to be more honestly inspected for inadequacy in funding. I agree with Adam that arts enhance and teach children how to learn for the improvement of their education. I wonder how many of the hungry in our culture are artists who are just getting by in order to fulfill their calling? Fund raising for hunger by artists and art programs are also a solution to aid hunger.

Posted By: Susan G | May 21, 2009 6:49 PM

You know what is truly disgraceful in all of this? PA is still committing $137mn in taxpayer dollars this year to the culturally boorish effort to dismantle the Barnes Foundation in Merion, PA and move Its art collection ONLY FIVE MILES to center city Philly.

The Pew and Annenberg trusts are at the forefront of this effort and someone used their political pull to get a now disgraced, convicted Senator Vince Fumo to put an earmark in the PA Budget in 2002 (S.B.1213 of 2002) and now Pennsylvanian's are stuck by these backroom shenanigans. It is said that Annenberg and Pew are starting construction this Fall and PA taxpayers will have to start kicking in under the Fumo earmark. This is PA's BRIDGE TO NOWHERE.

The Barnes Museum & School in Merion PA on a 12 acre arboretum and garden is the sanest, most soulful and most serene place in all the World to view and learn about art.

PA is the Laughingstock of the Art World for moving the Museum, but a small group of Rich People think that it is best and they don't care about PA's fiscal problems or Merion and Pennsylvania's cultural pride or integrity.

The Barnes is a sacred American place. It was designed in the same year that T.S. Eliot's Wasteland came out and it was built at the apogee of American Intellectual development. It is a reaffirmation of the spiritual at the height of the American Industrial Revolution. It represents things that we still don't understand today. The PA Govt. is helping to dismantle something they don't understand and should be saving. It is said that Dr. Barnes once called Walter Annenberg cheap: Is Walter Annenberg's foundation finally getting even with Dr. Barnes by dismantling Dr. Barnes' museum - with our tax dollars? Many believe that the Barnes Move is a cultural crime. Teh anti-Move candidate for PA att'y general won Philly by a landslide. So even the people of Philly don't appear to want the move. KEEP THE BARNES IN MERION! STOP THE MOVE! REPEAL THE VINCE FUMO MIDNIGHT EARMARK (1213 of 2002)! See, Barnesfriends.org Artjail.org Barnesfoundation.org

Posted By: lanny budd | May 21, 2009 9:34 PM

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