Monday Morning Quarterback – The Presidential Election and the Arts

The election is over and we’ve re-elected President Obama.  As someone who makes a living through the arts, this is a good thing.  Candidate Obama in 2008 generated a very extensive arts platform along with a very impressive list of names from the arts & culture community who attached their names to it.  As President, there was no need for the creation of another “manifesto” as he has the ability to put his money where his mouth is.  For 2013, the NEA’s budget will see a modest 5.5% increase, raising their budget to $154 billion, well below its all-time high budget of $175 billion under President George H. Bush in 1992. 

Candidate Romney this year made headlines with his plan to reduce funding for the NEA, Public Broadcasting Corporation and other organizations n the hope that they can become more self-sufficient.  There’s a wonderful blog that you can read here from the Huffington Post that breaks down Romney’s arts policies (or lack of).  In a nutshell, the NEA funds many programs and arts councils in the country, the majority of whom exist in under populated and underserved areas of the community – mostly in rural communities.  To put it in numerical context – based on the FY11 Annual Report, NYC based theater companies received in total $664,000, or approximately 0.004% of the NEA budget.  NYC arts communities have access to other funding sources that other communities do not and the NEA helps to level that playing field.

There have been many economic studies done to that support the positive economic impact that the arts have on communities.  The most recent is the Arts & Economic Prosperity report done by Americans for the Arts.  Based on their findings, there was $132 billion in economic activity in 2010, and $22.3 billion in local, state and federal revenue.  The arts are responsible for employing 4 million Americans.  FOUR MILLION!  (So kids, when mom and dad say that you can’t make a living in the arts you can throw that number at them!)

Now to be fair, I’m citing from 2 excellent blogs written for The Huffington Post, which doesn’t hide its liberal leanings.  But, a simple Google search of “arts funding + Romney” and “arts funding + Obama” will tell you all you need to know.  One presents a plan to increase funding, the other presents a plan to decrease and eliminate funding.  The people have spoken, we all like Big Bird.

One final note, I looked up the results of the popular votein this election and the numbers I found were Obama 59,621,436 to Romney’s 56,989,709, a difference of 2.6 million votes.  Imagine what would have happened if Mitt had went after the arts vote?