Art good, cuts bad

Last week, the all-new GOP House of Representatives proposed $20.6 million dollars in cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, a government program that funds PBS, NPR and a significant number of local art programs. In a clear anti-arts move, the GOP has pushed the arts, a nice chunk of our economy, to the wayside.

In addition to being really pretty to look at, art is everywhere in our society. Every packaged food has a label, every company has a logo and every dirty hippie needs a hobby. Aside from the upscale gallery art, we are surrounded by art and images in our everyday life.

The government budget cuts also expand to public broadcasting via radio and television. Half of Americans listen to NPR and watch PBS, yet the proposed cuts will severely damage both agencies. Public broadcasting suffers the least in cuts at 12.6 percent, while, the NEA takes a 24.6 percent cut in grant-making and a 12.6 percent cuts in its cultural agency.

Colin Powell commented on the issue on CNN, stating: “You can’t fix the deficit or the national debt by killing NPR or the national endowment for the humanities or the arts—nice political chatter, but that doesn’t do it.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the projected number of jobs in the artistic field is expected to rise by 19 percent by 2016, which is faster than the previous average. The field with the highest degree of job expansion is multi-media artists, with a projected rise of 26 percent in employment demand. With this in mind, many artists are hopeful for the outlook of their career in the future. But, with these cuts to grants and programs, the future looks significantly dimmer.

Due to the pervasiveness of art in our culture, we require artists in order to design products, create movies and video games, and to generally encourage our culture to get smarter. With these cuts to fundamental programs that endorse the arts, the hope for a more creative future seems less and less possible.

The average annual salary of an artist ranges from $16,000 up to $80,000 for art directors and non-freelance opportunities. That’s a large amount of money being taken away from the economy. By cutting the funding, we’re keeping artists from flourishing before they have a chance to develop. Due to the major cuts to the grant budget, craftsmen, designers, art educators and art students are all being thrown under the bus due to their lack of funds.

After the cuts were announced, Portland art college The Pacific Northwest College of Art e-mailed all students and asked them to take a stand against the government budget reduction.

Lobbyist group Americans for the Arts have been pushing for a change in the legislation, after the initial bill proposed by Rep. Scott Garrett would have zeroed out funding for the arts completely. A study by the group in 2002 says that an art education “strengthens problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, adding to overall academic achievement and school success” and “stimulates and develops the imagination and critical thinking, and refines cognitive and creative skills.”

Music, broadcasting, art, sculpture, theater and design are all topics that interest kids and students. By denying them a chance to express their creativity, you undercut their motivation to learn by pushing them towards subjects that are more “lucrative” careers based in science and mathematics. But the key to a good education is a balanced education. Therefore, the arts need a place in the life of a student in order to give them a different outlook.

While the United States faces a major budget deficit, attacking the arts will not solve the problem. By cutting funds to programs that are barely getting by, the government has clearly drawn a line in the sand and put those interested in the humanities on the other side. While art might not seem important in everyday life, when you realize that we live in a highly visual society, the issue becomes more important.

The budget cuts are going to create a major disadvantage to those currently working in the field of art. While the proposed cuts are significantly better than the original proposal of complete eradication, the government needs to give art a chance. ?