National Endowment for the Arts among programs Trump proposes to cut

With daily breaking news and general commentary on President Donald Trump's positions, plans and actions, one proposal threatens to slip under the radar: the intent to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in a new federal budget plan.The plan would also end funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

Trump's first budget proposal, titled "America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again," would cut all $148 million of the NEA's current budget. That funding makes up approximately 0.003 percent of the national budget of $4 trillion, and costs 46 cents per person per year. The blueprint, released on March 16, will in turn increase funding to the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs. Although the Republican Party has a long history of cutting funding for the arts, this announcement marks the first time a president has suggested these programs be eliminated entirely.

Almost instantly, directors and spokespeople for museums, arts advocacy groups and public radio stations have expressed their opposition to Trump's position. Non-profit literacy advocacy group PEN America, alongside other organizations including Daily Kos and the Asian American Arts Alliance, created a petition demanding that Congress reject the budget -- it has already received over 200,000 signatures. In Boston, directors of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's List Visual Arts Center, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Harvard Art Museums and the Museum of Fine Arts jointly penned an open letter advocating for the NEA and its influence in the arts world, although it does not explicitly reference Trump. Most recently, the Boston Ballet released a video on April 19 on its website and Facebook page called "Dance Is." Choreographed by Principal Dancer John Lam, the work features 22 dancers showing, through ballet, what their work means to them. Viewers are encouraged to share the video in support of the NEA and its preservation.

The reality is that many of the most famous and prestigious arts and radio organizations, like National Public Radio or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, can weather the federal cutoff. Most at risk are the smaller, local organizations that pen no famous dissent letters but play instrumental roles in their communities. The NEA in particular is the only funder in the country that offers arts grants in every congressional district. And even though its current funds are modest, its funding makes a big difference. Berea College in Berea, Ky. received $30,000 last fiscal year to fund free art programs for preschool-age children in rural communities who are otherwise isolated from larger creative programs. The Hydaburg Cooperative Association of the Haida tribe in Alaska relies on similar funding to pay local artists to carve traditional totem poles, preserving a native tradition that has existed for thousands of years. Vermont's famous Poetry Out Loud initiative uses federal funds to run a massive state-wide high school poetry competition. Alex Aldrich, who until recently was the Vermont Arts Council's executive director, told the Washington Post, "More students participate [in Poetry Out Loud] than play organized high school football ... This program cuts across all ethnic, socio-economic and religious lines."

Similar arguments have been made for the preservation of the CPB. Public radio provides an invaluable free service to millions of Americans who might not necessarily receive critical and relevant news through other means. CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison released a statement, noting, "There is no viable substitute for federal funding that ensures Americans have universal access to public media's education and information programming and services." However, on the day of the budget release, the Director of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney defended the White House's position, calling the proposed budget a "hard-power budget." Mulvaney said in an interview on MSNBC, "Can we really continue to ask a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for these programs? The answer was no." The CPB received $445 million in federal funding as of last year, 0.01 percent of the entire federal budget.

Mulvaney failed to acknowledge that public news and arts initiatives are invaluable in keeping communities informed and engaged in the political, social and cultural movements across the country. Although it will be up to Congress to draft the final budget, the unprecedented position of Trump and his team indicates an ignorance, or unwillingness, to preserve a communal cultural stronghold of the United States that has enriched millions since 1965.