“President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal 2016 calls for slight increases in federal funding for cultural institutions, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities,” writes David Ng in Tuesday’s (2/3) Los Angeles Times. “But the proposed increases wouldn’t come close to reversing the cuts experienced by those groups during the previous five years. The proposed 2016 budget calls for NEA funding to rise by approximately 1.3 percent to just under $148 million, while the NEH would see a slightly smaller percentage increase in funding. The agencies were allotted about $146 million in federal funding each for fiscal 2015.… Obama’s budget proposal, which was announced on Monday, still faces counter-proposals and negotiations in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Arts funding accounts for a minuscule part of the federal budget—usually less than one-tenth of 1 percent. The White House’s 2016 budget proposal also calls for increases in funding for the Smithsonian, National Gallery of Art and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The NEA is charged with disbursing grants for the arts and other cultural organizations throughout the country. For fiscal 2014, the NEA said it made 2,300 awards totaling $116 million.”
Posted February 5, 2015
