The term “fine arts” refers to the more “traditional” art forms such as music, theater/ film, dance, visual art, and literature. Fine arts show the current culture of an area and keep sacred past cultures. They help people to remember past and present situations and provide an outlet for people to express themselves in a way that nothing else can allow them. However, not everyone sees the fine arts in this way. Some say that the arts are becoming irrelevant and outdated. More and more people seem to be feeling this way which leads to these art forms losing public interest. This being said the artists involved with the fine arts feel that they need more funding from the government to encourage public interest, but some people feel that the arts should rely on their own private funding outlets instead. The government funds through a combination of direct public funding which comes from federal, state, regional, and local agencies and other public funding which comes from various federal departments and agencies. The National Endowment for the Arts is a major contributing factor within direct public funding. According to Arts.gov, a government based website, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is “the largest single funder of the arts in the US.” Other than public funding the arts can also get funding through private funding, which refers to private donations, individual giving, and foundation and corporation giving. Another way the arts can get funding is through their earned income from things like ticket and product sales. Through this essay I would like to expand conversation on funding for the arts in the US by presenting it in a way that people understand their importance and vitality to their everyday lives. I am speaking in favor of the arts to show people their misunderstandings and why they should care about the arts from the perspective of an aspiring ballet teacher.

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency that was created by Congress in 1965 (Arts.gov) to help fund the arts using the federal domestic budget (giarts.com). Its goals are to “fill monetary gaps with grants based on merit, enhance arts education, nourish arts creation, assist in presentation and delivery, and enable preservation” (Arts.gov).  According to Arts.gov the NEA’s appropriation for 2012 was one hundred and forty-six million, eighty percent of which went towards grant-making. To get a grant an organization must first submit a grant most likely written by a grant writer, then the grant goes through the review process. This process starts with the application, then it is reviewed by a panel of peers categorized by discipline, next it goes to the national council on the arts, and lastly it is reviewed by the NEA chairman. When someone or an organization receives a grant it will be one of four types. The four types consist of an Art Works grant which funds the creation of art, a Challenge America-Fast Track Works grant which helps organizations reach under-served populations experience the arts, an Our Town grant which support arts within a community, or a Research: Art Works grant which supports the analyzing of data on value and the impact of the arts (Arts.gov). An Art Works grant can range from ten thousand to one hundred thousand dollars (Arts.gov). These grants cover arts that support the community, learning, education, presentations/ performances, or basically anything that involves the creation of art or giving the experience of art to people (Arts.gov). Challenge America Fast-Track grants are all ten thousand dollars. These help artists to reach to those who cannot experience the arts due to some limitation whether that be physical, geographic, monetary, or any other limitation one may have. The Our Town grant was recently added to the types of grants in 2011 and ranges from twenty-five thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars (Arts.gov). These grants help to “reflect a community through art” (Arts.gov). They support projects that will incorporate art into a community through both visually and events that may go on (Arts.gov). The last type of grant is the Research: Art Works. This grant supports research on how the arts are valued and impact Americans and will range from ten thousand to thirty thousand dollars (Arts.gov). Other than grants the NEA also provides individual fellowships in literature, lifetime achievement awards, and various other arts initiatives. The NEA is a vital part of how the government funds the arts.

On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the president of the United States of America, and now on March 16, 2017 President Trump has already proposed the idea of cutting the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) from the federal budget. While some may say this is long overdue, the fact of the matter is that the NEA accounts for only .004 percent of the federal budget which is about forty-seven cents per US citizen (Jennifer Stahl 1). In the long run I am not sure what effect cutting these will even make a dent in the debt in the US, but it can really help the arts in the US. This may even just be an empty threat given by President Trump to see how people react. Maybe this cut will never happen, but it could, and we need to know our opinion on the matter in order to support it or go against it.

When monetary funding goes to the arts some people may feel that they never get to see where the money goes or experience the arts, however they sometimes forget to just look for them. If you look the arts are not hard to find. Almost every community offers arts education programs whether this be within the local schools or through non-profit organizations. Many of these programs will be within the public schools or through a non-profit organization therefore they are either free or only charge people what they do not already have covered financially by grants or private donations. Everyone has the opportunity to learn about and experience the arts. In order to give this opportunity to people though we need arts teachers, people who have the capability to teach their art to other. Art teachers seem to always be underappreciated though as I have seen and heard about in my personal life. In public schools’ arts programs are frequently the first to be cut in times of financial struggle. Why is this? Grant makers in the Arts say, “Research positively correlates arts education to school success factors such as higher graduation rates and stronger achievement scores. Arts education is also correlated to social and emotional development, civic engagement, and future arts participation.” If this is the case, why are we as Americans always volunteering the arts to be cut first from schools? One way that the government has recently tried to reverse this pattern is with their legislation to reauthorization the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (americansforthearts.org). This passed in 2015 and will span from fiscal years 2017-2020 (americansforthearts.org). What this act does is help to open up more opportunities for arts education. Other than in the public schools, people can learn the arts from a non-profit organization. I personally grew up taking ballet classes from a non-profit ballet school in my home town. I have seen the struggle of funding first hand. Nick Jaffe refers to artists as being people who are “collaborative, curious, and critical” in his article (page 1). Artists want to be able to share their passion with others. He also speaks on art teachers and their benefits saying, “…art making and arts learning are essential to humans and to society and worthwhile in themselves.” 

The arts do not only affect a community from an education standpoint, but also in a more general way too. Think of the largest, most prosperous cities in the world. What comes to mind? Do you think of New York City, Los Angeles, or Paris? What all these cities have in common are art that draws people to them like the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, and the Hollywood Row of Stars. The arts have made these communities successful and desirable to tourists, businesses, and investors (Joshua Guetzkow 1). An aesthetic is made for each community and the ones that are the most appealing involve some form of art, whether that be architecture, structures, morals, a grand performance, recital or any other form of art. The communities that have art in turn draw the most people to them. These people then spend money there, which builds up the community’s economy. The arts also provide numerous jobs, helping the economy too. With a successful community comes a sense of pride in one’s community resulting in unity amongst its people. As Joshua Guetzkow put it having art in a community “increases a sense of collective identity and efficacy” (2). The arts encourage organizations to connect and learn to work together. Then people meet who might never have met otherwise thus bringing about cultural diversity (Joshua Guetzkow 2). Guetzkow even states that communities with the arts have reduced crime and delinquency rates. The arts benefit not only the community, but each and every person within it.

According to Arts.gov the US lags way behind in the amount of funding our government gives to the arts (6).  Claire McCaughey did a comparison of funding for the arts between Finland, Germany, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, the UK, Australia, Ireland, and the US. Her article states that in 2003 the US had the “lowest per capita arts spending, public arts spending as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product, and public arts spending percent of the total public spending” compared to all of these other countries (1). To show how little the US gives to the arts she provides some figures. In 2003 the US spent .13 percent of our total public spending on the arts, whereas Finland, who gave the most in all of the above categories, spent 2.1 percent of their total public spending (Claire McCaughey 4). There is no irony in the fact that Finland has also been known for years for having an amazing education system, ranking in currently with the fifth best education in the world (Dani Thifa 1). To put this in perspective, the US’s education system is currently ranked number seventeen (Dani Thifa 1). While the US has the NEA, England has the Arts Council of England. This council gives seventeen dollars in grants per capita, the Scottish Arts Council gives twenty dollars, and the NEA only gives forty-four cents in grants per capita (Clair McCaughey 5). While this difference may seem extreme, it is actually not quite that large of a gap when you take into consideration that per capita basically means per person and each country has a different population size. Finland’s current population is 5.439 million (2013), England’s is 53.01 million (2011), Scotland’s is 5.295 million (2011), and the US’ is 318.9 million (2014) (google.com).

Many Americans believe that the NEA should be cut from the federal budget for a plethora of reasons. For starters nowhere in the Constitution does it say that it is the government’s responsibility to fund the arts (The Silent Bull 1). The arts are also highly censored in today’s culture (Chris Matthews). Schools and art shown for the general public are typically toned down do as not to insult anyone or be too extreme, thus limiting the artists free expression and defeating the purpose of art. The most prominent reason not to fund the arts through the government is money. The US is currently in a lot of debt. Even with this debt growing the US increased the NEA’s budget by forty-two million dollars from 2001 to 2012 (The Silent Bull 1). 2015 was the third year in a row that state and local funding for the arts has gone up, while even federal spending has stayed the same for those years (Ryan Stubbs and Henry Clapp 1). Meanwhile only nine percent of the money that supports the arts comes from the government and only one percent of the total arts funding comes from the NEA (Robert Lynch 2). Sixty percent of the funds that go to the arts comes from the arts’ earned income and thirty percent comes from private support like patrons, foundations, and corporations (Robert Lynch). In 2011 individuals gave around thirteen billion dollars to the arts and foundations and corporations gave around five hundred and eighty-three dollars ninety percent of which goes to local arts organizations (Arts.gov 3). Looking at these numbers one can assume that the arts do not even need government dollars, so why is everyone so interested in “Save the Arts” campaigns? Kurt Ellenberger claims that in his opinion these campaigns are just “suffering artists” wanting to receive a higher salary that will go directly in their pockets and not even to their art (1). He also states that even with more funding, people who do not want to experience the arts will not (4). It does not matter to them that the venue is fancy or that the display is elegant. If they did not enjoy the arts before, the fact that the arts have more money will not affect their support of the arts. 

Numerous Americans do however support the arts and the fact that the government should help fund them. The above point made said that the US cannot afford to support the arts due to debt, but in actuality the budget for the NEA is only .004 percent of the total federal budget, which amounts to only forty-seven cents per American through taxes (Jennifer Stahl 1). The funding that the NEA gets is so miniscule that it being cut would have virtually no effect on our massive debt anyways. When money goes to the arts it should not be thought of as “giving, but as investing” (Robert Lynch 1) because of all that the arts give back. The arts and culture sector are a seven hundred and four-billion-dollar industry, provide four million jobs, and generate twenty-two point three billion dollars in government revenue each year (Jennifer Stahl 1). Monetary benefits are not the only benefits that the arts give us. Jennifer Stahl says, “The arts allow for new experiences, explorations, and understanding” (1) and she is right. The arts can affect you in a way that nothing else can. Tax payers in particular get programs, performances, a protected American heritage, enhanced education, and state and national projects all from the arts (Frank Hodsoll 3). Everyone, whether they will admit it or not, benefits from having the arts, which is only made possible through government funding and the NEA.

Keeping all of this in mind I can for one say that I support government funding of the arts. The arts give us so much and do not ask for a lot from the government. They can try to support themselves through private donations and their earned incomes, but without some government help many art programs will disappear. There is absolutely no way that all of the thousands of small community based programs can last on solely private donations and their earned income. They need something more steady to cushion what they do not have. One million dollars may be only a speck of the federal budget, but it can make a huge difference in a community through its artists. Even Ronald Reagan once said, “No one realizes the importance of freedom more than the artist, for only in the atmosphere of freedom can the arts flourish. Artists have to be brave; they live in the realm of the idea and expression, and their ideas will often be provocative and unusual. Artists stretch the limits of understanding. They express ideas that are sometimes unpopular. In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glamorous celebrations. Where there’s liberty, art succeeds” (Frank Hodsoll 2) 
