Art for Anything but Art's Sake

Backstage: "The National Endowment for the Arts' wealthiest days came courtesy of a Republican president and a Democratic Congress. For the 1992 fiscal year, Congress and President George H.W. Bush allotted $176 million to the agency—pocket change by federal budget standards, but still the largest haul the NEA has ever enjoyed. A few years later, Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich would declare war on the organization, succeeding in having its budget slashed from $162.3 million in 1995 to $99.5 million in 1996, and very nearly killing the agency altogether."