Art Threat: Other than the outrage caused by Mitt Romney’s promise to fire Big Bird, there’s been virtually no discussion on arts issues leading up to the November 6 elections in the United States.
Cultural topics have been nearly absent in an election campaign dominated by the economy — despite the fact roughly 5 million Americans work in the arts in some capacity. With so little to go on, how does one know whether their local representatives support the arts?
5 comments:
If there was one thing that I would like to point out from this article, it's that 5 MILLION AMERICANS WORK IN THE ARTS. So in many ways, the arts play a large role in the economy and is very important in this debate, as well as any other. Good for the Dems for Acing arts! Let's hope the government can help keep the industry alive for us!
In an economic downturn, arts funding seems to be the funding put under the chopping block, and no one seems to be saying anything about it. It was pointed out that during these past few debates, arts funding hasn't really been mentioned at all, nor has any real opinion on the arts from either presidential candidate. I know there are other topics to discuss, but like the article said, 5 million people work in the arts, something's got to give here. You can't ignore funding for 5 million people and their livelihoods. I also checked the congressional "grade report" for my home state of Delaware, and was please to see that our lowly one representative had earned himself an "A" grade for funding and supporting the arts. Granted, Delaware doesn't have a gigantic arts scene, but for the 5 or 6 theatre companies in the state and the various community theatres it's nice to see that our representative is putting his best foot forward. If only our state had more than one representative, then possibly, more care and thought would go into funding arts programs on a national scale.
Of course as a person in the arts I want there to be funding for us, but it is hard even for me to be upset about this issue falling to the wayside during these debates. There are so many bigger issues in our country right now that I understand its underrepresentation. Knowing that five million Americans work in the arts makes me feel that maybe it should have been mentioned a little more, but I understand why it was not. I am quite nervous, though, about the future of the arts since it seems that fewer and fewer people see its contribution as necessary in our society.
I had no idea that so many people worked in the arts but that defiantly makes sense now that I really think about it. I think that is such a great resource to be able to find out which people in politics support the arts and how much, but I dont think that should really effect our votes at all. I realize that arts are often a last priority but really I agree with that because we really need to be focusing on things like health care, our economy, women's and gay's rights and how the people we are voting for feel about those things. There will always be art. There has been art since there have been people, so we dont need to worry about loosing it.
For 146 million? The answer is: no one in Congress supports the arts. The federal government budget for 2012 was 2.6 trillion dollars. Anyone care to guess what percentage 146 million of 2.6 trillion is? that's right, it's .0006, or one 60,000th of a penny on the dollar. No need to ask who supports the arts. Democrats and Republicans alike, the answer is "no one."
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