The U.S. House of Representatives approved a $15 million increase for both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for FY 2010, as my good friend Cecil Thompson just e-mailed me.
This is Great! The problems with the economy are hurting the performing arts spaces big time… from the Metropolitan Opera down to many of the smaller companies and performance groups in your own regions.
This will bring the NEA’s budget from $155 Million to $170 million (NEH, too!) and many companies and many performing arts jobs will stay in existence because of this increase.
Now we have to get the Senate to go along with this raise. Call or write your Senators now. Go to http://capwiz.com/artsusa/issues/alert/?alertid=13627991 and send the e-mail form. Do it now. DON’T WAIT!
Remember: funding the arts means JOBS. It means income for restaurants, stores, parking lots, subways, buses, costume shops, set contractors, advertising companies, newspapers… and on and on and on. As many of us have known for a long time, money spent on the arts is respent in the community at a much higher percentage than in other industries (the performance you go to see is generally not manufactured in China…Get it?)
According to Americans for the Arts, the nonprofit arts industry generates $166.2 billion annually in economic activity, supports 5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs and returns $12.6 billion to the federal government in income taxes. Who else can show that kind of return?