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National Endowment for the Arts—WHOSE ART? 5/13/1997 Washington, D.C. -—”Much of the 'art' the NEA has been supporting with our tax dollars is blatantly pornographic. It is wrong to spend American taxpayer dollars for art many find offensive,“ said Carmen Pate, Vice President and Spokesman at Concerned Women for America. ”For years the NEA has financed controversial projects. All efforts to reform the NEA have failed miserably, so it's clear Republicans were on the right track when they vowed to phase out the NEA by 1998.“ BACKGROUND: The NEA was created in 1965 with an initial budget of $2.5 million and less than a dozen employees. Today the NEA boasts a budget of $99.5 million per year and has spent more than $2.5 billion since its inception. NEA grants have funded projects that feature feminist and lesbian themes, explicit sex, human excrement, and aberrant portrayals of Jesus Christ as a drug addict or a homosexual. 'SHOW ME THE MONEY': Audits done between 1991 and 1996 revealed that one-fifth of the NEA's budget disappears in administrative overhead, while 79 percent of their projects could not document their costs. In 63 percent of the cases, the books just didn't add up. Still, President Bill Clinton has requested the NEA budget be increased to $136 million in 1998. ”How any member of Congress could justify spending taxpayer money on this garbage is a mystery. In a nation that faces a $5.3 trillion debt, there are better ways to spend America's hard-earned tax dollars,“ explained Pate. ”It just makes sense to defund organizations that are not only unnecessary and wasteful, but in many ways harmful to our families and to our society. The National Endowment for the Arts is one of those organizations. It's time to defund this million dollar scam.“ Contrary to NEA claims, the arts will not cease to exist without federal funding. Private funding of the arts comes to over $9.5 billion annually, dwarfing the approximate 100 million from the government. The arts have been around for thousands of years and will continue to exist long after the NEA is gone. |
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Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
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