white with foam

So Guv’nah Brownback (R-Koch) has floated the idea of restoring some funding to the state arts commission. Naturally there are strings: the restored budget is less than a third of what was cut last year, and the proposal makes no attempt to approach the money needed to qualify for NEA grants. It also combines the arts agency with the film commission, an agency whose work is by nature temporary and project-based.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too, at least not without baking the cake first. Like, with heat, man. You know? Okay, my point is this: is it so implausible that a flat $200,000 budget was the plan all along? Here’s an idea that seems like a reasonable compromise, and the man who floated it, a shrewd negotiator. The effect, though, is that not only is the bar for measuring compromise now lower, but as a bonus, the public discourse about the virtues of public arts support has shifted rightward. Rather than celebrating the obvious economic, educational and long-term benefits of a functional arts life on a state level, supporters have to use the words “essential” and “non-essential.” If you’re a person who nickels-and-dimes all public expenditures, this is a juicy plum indeed: long after you’ve replaced one fool with another, you can still ask people which they’d prefer: a jarful of piss, or a jarful of peanut butter. As if the person holding the position of politician — or artist — were more important than the institution. (This point is articulated beautifully here.)

Unsure which side of the line dividing advocacy from paranoia this lands me.

Tags:   arts funding · Brownback · KansasNo Comments