18 July 2024
Arts Advocates, we need your help to protect funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities!
From Arts Action Fund:
The FY’25 House Interior Appropriations bill will be going to the House floor for consideration the week of July 22, 2024. This bill currently appropriates $203.895 million each to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). While this represents a 1.5 percent cut below current funding levels, we already know that two drastic amendments will be offered on the House floor next week by freshman Freedom Caucus member Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK). His amendments would further cut NEA and NEH by an additional $48 million each. That’s over a 23% cut that we cannot let happen!
Our arts advocacy focus now is on the U.S. House of Representatives. We anticipate the House floor vote on these amendments will happen the week of July 22nd. Please act NOW to write to your Representative urging him/her to VOTE NO on the Rep. Brecheen floor amendments to prevent further cuts to the NEA and NEH.
Additional Context
The Senate has not yet marked up its version of the FY’25 Interior Appropriations bill. We will notify you with a timely Action Alert when this issue comes up in the Senate chamber. FY’24 Funding was $207M for each agency, and the arts community has requested a funding level of $211M for each this year.
Last year Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) offered two House floor amendments, which advocates helped defeat, that would have eliminated all funding to the NEA and NEH. See how your House Member voted on those amendments last year. Remember: A NO vote was a vote to protect arts funding, just like it will be this year.
Talking Points
We’ve included the below information in an email template, but you can view the full issue brief here >>
- Approximately 4,000 communities are served each year through NEA grants. Around 41 million Americans annually attend a live arts event supported by the NEA, including approximately 36,000 concerts, readings, and performances, and 6,000 exhibitions.
- The arts make communities more livable.
- The arts enhance the quality of our lives.
- The arts generate significant economic impact and jobs in our states.
- The arts inspire creativity and innovation.
- The arts create healthy social bonds to combat loneliness and mental health issues.
- NEA annually awards, on average, 2,300 grants across every Congressional District in the country. Most grants go to small- and medium-sized organizations (budgets less than $2 million), and support projects that increase audience access to arts programming.
- 35% of NEA grants take place in high-poverty neighborhoods.
- 35% of grants reach low-income audiences of under-resourced populations such as people with disabilities, people in institutions, and Veterans.
- Federal agencies and nonprofit organizations partner with the NEA on national initiatives, using the arts as a platform for enhancing the quality of life for all. Such partnership examples include Creative Forces, Poetry Out Loud, Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge, NEA Big Read, Blue Star Museums, and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design.
