General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBiden Reestablishes Arts and Humanities Committee Gutted by Trump
T5he committees main responsibilities will be to shape policy goals, stimulate arts philanthropy, and advocate for the expansion of federal backing of the cultural sector.
The committee, which was first established in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan, works in concert with the White House and three primary federal cultural agencies the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). But in 2017, when former President Donald Trump drew moral equivocations about the perpetrators of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, all 16 remaining non-ex officio members including artist Chuck Close, writer Jhumpa Lahiri, and architect Thom Mayne resigned in protest. Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values, they wrote in a letter sent to the White House. In response, the Trump administration stated that it had already decided to disband the committee because it was simply not a responsible way to spend American tax dollars.
The Trump administration years were marked by an executive assault on federal funding for the arts even as Congress mobilized in response to protect critical arts and cultural organizations. In 2017, Trump proposed to gut the NEA, and every budget he proposed during his tenure would have eliminated funding for the agency. His 2021 budget proposal called the NEA and NEH wasteful and unnecessary funding.
The Biden administrations executive order marks an effort to signal a return to normalcy. The arts, the humanities, and museum and library services are essential to the well-being, health, vitality, and democracy of our Nation, the order begins. They are the soul of America, reflecting our multicultural and democratic experience. Bidens 2021 proposal would have raised the NEAs allocation by 20% and the NEHs by 6% after he took office.
More: https://hyperallergic.com/765932/biden-reestablishes-arts-and-humanities-committee-gutted-by-trump/
...and Biden fixes yet another thing Trump tried to trash. Let's go, Brandon!
Lovie777
(12,252 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)How do you suppose that headline would play on Fox?
XanaDUer2
(10,660 posts)crickets
(25,964 posts)McKim
(2,412 posts)This is wonderful! Make it a cabinet position, a Minister of Culture position. We should be recognizing and fostering the arts!
calimary
(81,220 posts)Secretary of the Arts and Cultural Affairs.
It's important enough, and broad-based enough that it may well deserve a Cabinet position of its own.
niyad
(113,276 posts)important to both civic and inner life.
I love the timing of this, as October is Celebration of the Arts month here in fundieville.
The NEA funded a program on public television that taught guitar. Both my sister and I watched it religiously every week. Fifty years later, I am still playing.
The National Endowment for the Arts introduced me to my mistress.