Government funding of the arts: For or against?

[eagl]

So...

If I poop in a bucket, place a sunflower in there, and call it art, do I qualify for govt funding?  In other words, do I deserve your tax dollars for pooping in the bucket?  What if I claim discrimination because the local university or city art society won't fund my bucket pooping?

I would argue no, that sort of thing does not deserve tax money.  But who sets the standards, if not the govt agency tasked with spreading around some tax money (the money you worked hard for and gave to the govt) with the intent to foster a variety of artistic expression?

Someone has to set the standard, and govt funding of the arts is to ensure that artistic diversity survives what can often be brutal peer repression.  So while there must be standards, those standards must be loose enough that some money goes to artistic endeavours that are outside the mainstream.

I don't trust YOU to make that decision, and if it was my decision I'd keep the tax dollars and buy a painting from a student at the local art school.  But that doesn't help the "artist" who is trying to get tax dollars to poop in a bucket, and that's really what the question is all about.  Who decides if pooping in a bucket should be funded as "art".

[JB88]

i should by an f-16 from a starving college engineer.

because that's who makes the good stuff.



nobody is trying to get money to poop in a bucket.  they are trying to get it to poop on a canvas.  get your facts straight.

same tired arguments... over pittance.

[Maverick]

For those who think Eagles idea is out of the question, I remind you that we have already had a very similar example that was touted as "art". One of the most recent examples was the individual that decided a cross submerged in human urine was "art".

Do you think that deserves tax dollars?

There are other examples, just google fecal art and you will see numerous examples. Here is one link.
http://media.www.middleburycampus.com/media/storage/paper446/news/2004/02/26/Arts/Is.It.Art-617874.shtml

I'm sorry but art deserves to be funded privately, not by tax dollars.

[JB88]

Originally posted by Maverick
For those who think Eagles idea is out of the question, I remind you that we have already had a very similar example that was touted as "art". One of the most recent examples was the individual that decided a cross submerged in human urine was "art".

Do you think that deserves tax dollars?

There are other examples, just google fecal art and you will see numerous examples. Here is one link.
http://media.www.middleburycampus.com/media/storage/paper446/news/2004/02/26/Arts/Is.It.Art-617874.shtml

I'm sorry but art deserves to be funded privately, not by tax dollars.

dont even need to read it.  the elephant poop was included (as a very small part of, iirc, a work of mary that was made entirely of materials found on the site that it was made in in africa....it wasnt even meant to be controversial...someone just latched onto it.

pisschrist.  its serano.  was a long time ago and it is rolled up everytime some fear monger needs to point a finger at some other monster than the real ones that are stealing from and corrupting our society.

tired tired tired.

give us something recent.  

geez.

pittance.

[tedrbr]

I don't see the funding of the arts as "charity".  I see it as support of art.  Similar to support of science and education and research.  Although not as earthly important or of having the potential impact as science and education and research, it nonetheless is a part of society that should be supported.


It also takes "petty" to a whole new level.
The National Endowment for the Arts budget was submitted as $170 million for FY 2007.   $170 million out of a Federal Budget of $2.8 trillion.

You are begrudging an expenditure of 0.006% of the total budget. That's just 6 cents out of every $1,000 dollars spent.  

That's $170 million that goes to dance, music, literature, visual arts, television, radio, and supporting the touring of artistic works around the nation for wider exposure.

The NEA has a lower price tag than most any SINGLE pork barrel rider that most members of Congress get attached to one bill or another each year.

Those that target the NEA usually either have a social agenda against something they have funded;  Are would-be quasi-anarchist that don't want to spend 1 dime of their own on anything -- but do generally want to personally benefit from the existence of government; Are trying to run smoke and mirrors to take attention away from the several hundred million of pork barrel spending that they do favor and support; OR are so hyper-homophobic  that anything related to art has them overreacting to defend their so called man-hood.  

But on a dollar basis..... JB88 is right.... it is such a tiny fraction of the whole to be not worth a debate against it.  You want to save money, go look at some REAL government waste in funding.


Does some of that money go to pretty bad projects?  Yep... it happens, and those are the one's that make the news.  But the (unreported) good far outweighs the (sensationalized) bad out of that program.

[Maverick]

JB,

You are welcome to give your money to it. You are not welcome to send mine to it. Art does not deserve public funding from tax dollars any more than movie studios, rap "musicians"or other examples of popular entertainment do. They need to survive on their worth to individuals in competition on the economy, not as a government subsidized project. If it has worth, people will pay for it willingly. FWIW I also include professional sports in the same venue with their tax incentives and demands for new stadiums or arenas.

[AKIron]

Good read Toad, especially liked this:

"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means.

To those who are willing to spend MY money on something THEY think art consider this question: are you willing to pay for a manger scene outside the courthouse at Christmas? I consider that to be art.

[JB88]

Originally posted by Maverick
JB,

You are welcome to give your money to it. You are not welcome to send mine to it. Art does not deserve public funding from tax dollars any more than movie studios, rap "musicians"  do. They need to survive on their worth to individuals in competition on the economy, not as a government subsidized project. If it has worth, people will pay for it willingly.

i dont.  and i never ask for your money for it without delivering a product in return.

but lets not compare buttholes to gaping bullet wounds here.

if you truly feel that way than you need to write your congressman and tell him to quit subsidising roads and national parks...and lets not forget the military...you know, the ones who take up the single largest segment of the budget...so much in fact that it would require a microscope to see the arts next to it on a pie chart.

by your arguments, these other hooligans are robbing you blind.

[AKIron]

Originally posted by JB88
i dont.  and i never ask for your money for it without delivering a product in return.

but lets not compare buttholes to gaping bullet wounds here.

if you truly feel that way than you need to write your congressman and tell him to quit subsidising roads and national parks...and lets not forget the military...you know, the ones who take up the single largest segment of the budget...so much in fact that it would require a microscope to see the arts next to it on a pie chart.

by your arguments, these other hooligans are robbing you blind.

The constitution mentions providing for the common defense, not art. Robbing us yes but we aren't blind and still we let them pick our pockets.


I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'

[Maverick]

You make assumptions that are not valid. I see those same issues you raised as being somewhat necessary, particularly the roads you so cavalierly mentioned. I also wasn't discussing any of those issues. The question of the post was art, not roads, military or even public parks.

The question was do we agree with government subsidies to support art. My opinion is no.

I also don't support the use of tax dollars to fund sports, racing or entertainment venues either. The amount of taxes for it is immaterial, I don't agree with it. I understand that my opinion is not the only one and I accept it. I have no problem that you believe it does deserve tax funding. You are entitled to your opinion and I have not denigrated you for expressing it, nor have I used unrelated issues to try and bolster my position. It's OK to have differing opinions.

[JB88]

which kinda sucks because i really liked the smithsonian...the arts musuem is top notch...paid for by the taxpayer...oh...and the air museum too.  gonna have to go.

[JB88]

it is common defense AND the GENERAL WELFARE that is stated in section 8 of the constitution.

some would consider a society which supports the arts as one which cares about a diverse form of public welfare as opposed the spartan "lets go look at a pretty tank" one.

again.  it is negligible.  

and patently ridiculous.  

no matter how it's sliced.

[Rino]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Support for the arts is not charity, no matter what link you might dig up Toad.

     Just who are you to decide how the rest of us spend our tax money?
Public support for the arts certainly is charity, if you want the arts funded..
do it privately.

[JB88]

who is anybody to?

but heyyyyy...i got an idea, lets focus on this little speck while theres a big ball of wasteful spending dung hanging over our heads and robbing our children (who have no exposure to the arts and wouldnt appreciate the image that i am painting) of thier future because we focused entirely on the wrong problem.

ahem.

big black ball of wasteful dung...right over there ------>                          pork.

[tedrbr]

NEA get's 6 (SIX) cents on evey $1,000 tax dollars spent !!

If arguing on the basis of the money spent, and who has what right to decide what, I've got a few tidbits to edumacate yous all of just what happens to some other of you moneys.

The Missing $25 Billion
Buried in the Department of the Treasury’s 2003 Financial Report of the United States Government is a short section titled “Unreconciled Transactions Affecting the Change in Net Position,” which explains that these unreconciled transactions totaled $24.5 billion in 2003.[2]

The unreconciled transactions are funds for which auditors cannot account: The government knows that $25 billion was spent by someone, somewhere, on something, but auditors do not know who spent it, where it was spent, or on what it was spent. Blaming these unreconciled transactions on the failure of federal agencies to report their expenditures adequately, the Treasury report con_cludes that locating the money is “a priority.”

The unreconciled $25 billion could have funded the entire Department of Justice for an entire year.

FY2007 Defense Budget line item:  $5,500,000 added by the House for the Gallo Center. According to its website, “The Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center (EGCRC) at the University of California, San Francisco (USCF) was established in 1980 to study basic neuroscience and the effects of alcohol and drug abuse on the brain.” There is no mention of any defense-related research. Apparently, they will serve no pork before its time.

Unused Flight Tickets Totaling $100 Million
A recent audit revealed that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department purchased and then left unused approximately 270,000 commercial airline tickets at a total cost of $100 million. Even worse, the Pentagon never bothered to get a refund for these fully refundable tickets. The GAO blamed a system that relied on department personnel to notify the travel office when purchased tickets went unused.[3]

Auditors also found 27,000 transactions between 2001 and 2002 in which the Pentagon paid twice for the same ticket. The department would purchase the ticket directly and then inex_plicably reimburse the employee for the cost of the ticket. (In one case, an employee who allegedly made seven false claims for airline tickets professed not to have noticed that $9,700 was deposited into his/her account). These additional transactions cost taxpayers $8 million.

This $108 million could have purchased seven Blackhawk helicopters, 17 M1 Abrams tanks, or a large supply of additional body armor for U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

FY-2007: $35,000,000 for Impact Aid, which is described by the website of the Military Impacted Schools Association as “the federal government paying its ‘tax bill’ to local school districts as a result of the presence of a military installation.” The funding included $5,000,000 for Impact Aid for children with disabilities. It is the taxpayers who are impacted by this aid.

Embezzled Funds at the Department of Agriculture
Federal employee credit card programs were designed to save money. Rather than weaving through a lengthy procurement process to acquire basic supplies, federal employees could purchase job-related products with credit cards that would be paid by their agency. What began as a smart way to streamline government has since been corrupted by some federal employees who have abused the public trust.

A recent audit revealed that employees of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) diverted mil_lions of dollars to personal purchases through their government-issued credit cards. Sampling 300 employees’ purchases over six months, investigators estimated that 15 percent abused their government credit cards at a cost of $5.8 million. Taxpayer-funded purchases included Ozzy Osbourne concert tickets, tattoos, lingerie, bartender school tuition, car payments, and cash advances.

The USDA has pledged a thorough investigation, but it will have a huge task: 55,000 USDA credit cards are in circulation, including 1,549 that are still held by people who no longer work at the USDA.
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, Headquarters Audit Report, “Adequacy of Internal Controls over the Individually Billed Travel Card Program,” Report No. 50601–05–HQ, June 19, 2003, at http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/ 50601-05-HQ.pdf (March 28, 2005).

FY-2007: $225,000,000 for port security grants, a 29 percent increase from last year’s total. Pork-barrel funding for this program has more than doubled in two years. Established in 2002, the grants are an opportunity for private companies and port authorities to apply for federal financing to improve security at ports. An audit performed by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2005 revealed that some of the grants “appeared to be for a purpose other than security against an act of terrorism.” According to the audit, 95 percent of all international commerce enters the United States through the nation’s 360 ports, but nearly 80 percent comes through only 10 ports. While Congress intended the grants to protect ports that have the highest volume of cargo, handle hazardous material, or are located near military facilities, the audit found DHS was distributing the funds in a broad, unfocused manner. As a result, the department “had no assurance that the program is protecting the nation's most critical and vulnerable port infrastructure and assets.” Although major ports received funding, so too did smaller ones, including ports in Ludington, Michigan; Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; and six located in Arkansas, none of which appeared to meet grant eligibility requirements, according to the audit.

Credit Card Abuse at the Department of Defense
The Defense Department has uncovered its own credit card scandal. Over one recent 18-month period, Air Force and Navy personnel used govern_ment-funded credit cards to charge at least $102,400 for admission to entertainment events, $48,250 for gambling, $69,300 for cruises, and $73,950 for exotic dance clubs and prostitutes.
Source: U.S. General Accounting Office, Travel Cards: Air Force Management Focus Has Reduced Delinquencies, But Improvements in Controls Are Needed, GAO–03–298, December 20, 2002, p. 4, and “Travel Cards: Control Weaknesses Leave Navy Vulner_able to Fraud and Abuse,” testimony before Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, GAO–03– 148T, October 8, 2002, p. 8.

That's from a quick 15 minute search.  You folks are worried about 6 cents on ever $1,000 for the NEA?   Classic example of being unable to see the forest for the trees.  

Pa-thet-ic.