Romney to ax art funding

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Politico has excerpts from an upcoming Mitt Romney interview in Fortune magazine, in which the Republican presidential candidate expounds on his plan to shrink the federal government and reduce spending. Depressingly, but not surprisingly, he targets arts funding, saying:

[F]irst there are programs I would eliminate. Obamacare being one of them but also various subsidy programs — the Amtrak subsidy, the PBS subsidy, the subsidy for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities. Some of these things, like those endowment efforts and PBS I very much appreciate and like what they do in many cases, but I just think they have to stand on their own rather than receiving money borrowed from other countries, as our government does on their behalf.

This means not a reduction in the funding for PBS or either of the National Endowments but complete elimination. Goodbye, NEA! It’s been a wild ride. (On a side note: Amtrak is already a hot mess. Privatizing it would seem to be the last nail in the coffin of nationwide public transport. Americans love their damn cars so much it makes me sick.)

Salon.com > National Endowment for the Arts

Romney to ax art funding