policy and advocacy

Issue Brief: National Endowment for the Arts

Promoting Creativity and Public Access to the Arts

ACTION NEEDED
We urge Congress to support a budget of $170 million for the NEA in the FY07 Interior Appropriations bill to increase funding for the creation, preservation, and presentation of the arts in America through the NEA’s core programs—Access to Artistic Excellence, Challenge America: Reaching Every Community, Federal/State Partnerships, and Learning in the Arts.

TALKING POINTS

• The NEA awarded 1,724 grants last year to nonprofit arts organizations for projects that encourage artistic creativity and that bring the arts to millions of Americans. Grants are awarded through all of its discipline programs—dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, local arts agencies, media arts, multidisciplinary, museums, music, musical theater, opera, presenting, theater, and visual arts.This public investment preserves and enhances our nation’s diverse cultural heritage and results in new and classic works of art reaching all 50 states. Because these discipline programs have not been restored to their pre-1995 funding levels, the NEA is unable—without an increase to these core discipline programs—to bring the best in the arts to all Americans.
• Over ninety-nine percent of all congressional districts received direct NEA grants in 2005. Challenge America is the primary vehicle ensuring that direct grants from the NEA reach underserved populations as well as congressional districts that did not receive grants in prior years. The essential mission of Challenge America demands its full funding.
• The NEA is a solid investment in the economic growth of communities across the country. The nonprofit arts industry generates $134 billion annually in economic activity, supports 4.85 million full-time equivalent jobs, and returns $10.5 billion to the federal government in income taxes. Measured against direct federal cultural spending of about $1.4 billion, that’s a return of nearly eight to one. (Source: Arts & Economic Prosperity, Americans for the Arts, 2002)  Investment in the NEA provides economic growth and helps offset the federal deficit. Americans for the Arts’ Creative Industries report includes a 2006 map of each congressional district with information on arts-related jobs and businesses, available at http://www.artsusa.org/creativeindustries/maps.
• The NEA supports lifelong learning in the arts. This includes a wide range of projects, including educational programs for adults, collaborations between state arts agencies and state education agencies, and partnerships between arts institutions and educators. Arts education has been proven to help students increase cognitive development, inspire motivation and discipline, develop confidence and inventiveness, and hone communication and problem-solving skills. Students with an education rich in the arts have better grade point averages, score better on standardized tests, and have lower dropout rates—findings that cut across all socioeconomic categories. (Source:  Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, Arts Education Partnership, 2002)
• The NEA enjoys bipartisan support, with an increasing margin of support each year. FY06 NEA appropriations were increased in a floor amendment by a voice vote in 2005, and in 2004 an increase was approved by a vote of 241 to 185. In 2005, 152 Members of Congress signaled their support of an NEA increase by signing a bipartisan Dear Colleague letter to appropriators.

BACKGROUND
A unique combination of federal, state, and local governments; private business; and the nonprofit sector provides an infrastructure for the arts that is critical to the economic vitality of state and local communities and to our nation’s cultural well-being. In a striking example of federal/state partnership, 40 percent of NEA’s program dollars are granted to state arts agencies, ensuring that every congressional district/state receives federal funds. These grants, combined with state legislative appropriations and other dollars, are distributed widely to strengthen states’ arts infrastructures and ensure broad access to the arts.

The NEA is committed to ensuring that all Americans have access to the transformative experiences the arts can provide. The agency supports model programs of indisputable artistic merit and broad national reach. Through initiatives such as American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius, the American people have the opportunity to celebrate American creativity and experience the best of our culture. 

The American public favors spending federal tax dollars in support of the arts, as evidenced by bipartisan support in the House and Senate. Unfortunately, the NEA is funded at only $124.4 million in the present fiscal year (FY06); it has never recovered from a 40 percent budget cut in FY96, and its programs are seriously underfunded. It has had only small incremental increases in the past six years. A total appropriation of $170 million for FY07 would nearly restore the agency to its 1992 level of $176 million, which was then equal to 69 cents per capita. In 2006, 14 years later, the federal government spends only 41 cents per capita. If adjusted for inflation, the per capita spending cut would be even deeper.

ADDITIONAL TALKING POINTS

• The arts attract new tourism dollars.  Public support of cultural tourism plays a critical role in community revitalization as well as the surge in tourism, one of the fastest-growing economic markets in the country today. Sixty-five percent of U.S. travelers include cultural events on their trips. These travelers spend an average of $38.05 per event in addition to the cost of admission—75 percent more than their local counterparts—on event-related items such as meals, parking, and retail sales. Local attendees spend an impressive $21.75 per person per event. (Sources:  The Historic/Cultural Traveler 2001 (TravelScope Survey), Travel Industry Association of America, 2001; and Arts & Economic Prosperity, Americans for the Arts, 2002)
• Public spending on the arts helps position the United States to compete globally. America’s arts and entertainment are leading exports, with estimates of more than $30 billion annually in overseas sales, including the output of artists and other creative workers in the audiovisual, music and recording, and entertainment businesses. In order to maintain an ongoing global position of economic strength and leadership, the federal investment in creative capital is increasingly important. The nonprofit arts foster creativity that feeds not only the arts, but business and technology as well.
• Federal funding for the arts is critical to leveraging private funding. On average, each NEA grant generates at least seven dollars from other sources. Government cultural funding plays a leadership role that is essential in generating private support for the arts.
• Arts education programs funded by the NEA deter delinquent behavior in at-risk youth. The NEA has provided leadership in demonstrating that arts programs designed to deter delinquent behavior of at-risk youth dramatically improve academic performance; reduce school truancy; and increase communication skills, conflict resolution, completion of challenging tasks, and teamwork. (Source: YouthARTS Development Project, Juvenile Justice Bulletin, U.S. Department of Justice, May 2001, in partnership with the NEA)
• The stability of federal funding is important to the arts. While support for the arts—foundation, corporate, and individual donations, as well as earned income—has fluctuated over several years, and with state and local government support only beginning to recover from recent cuts, but still below former levels—public needs are greater than ever.  The stability of federal funding is all the more important to the arts in a time of fiscal fluctuations. (Source: Government Support for the Arts 1994 to 2005, Americans for the Arts, 2005)