Your legislators need to know that their constituents want them to support the arts. The conference committees on arts funding are meeting right now! Decisions will be made in the next week or so. Please take five minutes to let them know you'd like them to protect arts funding this session.
Bills have been introduced to get rid of the Perpich Center for Arts Education. The Center is a resource for arts education throughout the State of Minnesota, serving all Minnesota schools, K-12 teachers and teaching artists, students, and all arts areas - as the only support by the state for arts education.
Recently, there was a not flattering audit done by the state's Legislative Auditor. However, new board and leadership have just been appointed by the Governor and the Perpich Center is in the midst of a lively and dedicated rebirth with a highly qualified board-over half recently appointed and already demonstrating a solid commitment to correcting all issues brought to light in the recent Legislative Auditor's reports. A significant number of these issues have already been addressed.
LEGISLATORS ARE SAYING NO ONE IS CONTACTING THEM IN SUPPORT OF THE PERPICH CENTER AND ARTS EDUCATION. Ask your legislators to give Perpich Center time to improve!
CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS NOW. Time is short.
The initial outlining documents were first released back in March. Today's detailed reports continue the same misguided termination ideas of our nation's cultural grant-making institutions, including proposed termination of the NEA, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Assistance for Arts Education program, among others.
All together, the Trump proposal would cut nondefense discretionary spending every year for 10 years. It also proposes to reduce the size of the federal workforce and reorganize agencies. The release now officially starts the hearing process in Congress. For the latest information, be sure to visit our Mobilization Center!
The Trump Administration has now put out two proposals to cut the National Endowment for the Arts. For the current fiscal year, the Trump Administration would like Congress to immediately cut $15 million from the NEA and NEH apiece. For next year, FY2018, the Administration would like to fully terminate the two cultural agencies.
Take 2 minutes now to contact your members of Congress and join the #SAVEtheNEA campaign.
What Does This Mean?
As previous reported, advisors to the President were recommending this elimination, and conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation have been attempting to end the NEA for decades, not to mention calls for its termination in budget resolutions passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in years' prior.
Is There Any Good News?
The FY2018 proposal is a blueprint and will be considered by Congress, but like all proposals, Congress will be considering their own budget priorities-and likely without much regard to the administration's request.
In fact, President Trump himself encouraged Congress to make some funding decisions independent of the executive branch. He stated as much last year in response to questions about arts funding. He said, "The Congress, as representatives of the people, make the determination as to what the spending priorities ought to be." And, members of Congress are already speaking out against the Trump budget, including some Republicans, who are calling the proposal "dead on arrival."
But make no mistake, we are taking the Trump proposal seriously and are calling on you now to contact your representatives in Congress. Let them know that eliminating the NEA would be a devastating blow to the arts in America. For more than 50 years, the NEA has expanded access to the arts for all Americans, awarding grants in every Congressional district throughout all 50 states and U.S. Territories as well as placing arts therapists in 12 military hospitals to help returning soldiers heal from traumatic brain injuries. The NEA is also an economic powerhouse, generating more than $600 million annually in additional matching funds and helping to shape a $730 billion arts and culture industry that represents 4.2% of the nation's GDP and supports 4.8 million jobs.
Take 2 minutes now and join the #SAVEtheNEA campaign. Also, visit our Arts Mobilization Center at any time for all the latest resources and response.
Thank you for your support of the arts and for being an arts advocate. Now more than ever is the time to tell our story and make our case again and again at the federal, state and local level that the arts matter! Again, this is just the first step. There will be many more points along the way as the proposal moves through Congress-likely all the way until the Fall of 2017 before anything is finalized.
We will be calling on you at key moments to keep weighing in and making your voice heard.
On Arts Advocacy Day, Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) announced new legislation to strengthen the creative economy to a crowd of over 500 arts advocates.
Entitled Comprehensive Resources for Entrepreneurs in the Arts to Transform the Economy (CREATE) Act (S.2648), the comprehensive bill aims to better support our nation's creative economy and builds off of research of numerous economic studies, including Arts and Economic Prosperity findings.
Through minor adjustments to existing federal programs in agencies like the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Treasury, the legislation takes steps to better invest in our country's workforce and creative economy, while recognizing artists as contributors to the small business community. It does this through three titles: 1) Support for artists and entrepreneurs; 2) Support for the creative economy, and 3) Creative community development.
Provisions include direction that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) works with micro-lenders, traditional lenders, and regulators to ensure that artists and entrepreneurs have access to micro-loans and that loan program criteria are not discriminatory toward arts-related businesses. There is also a requirement that the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and Rural Development Administration ensure that traditional economic development tools, such as incubators and grant programs, support the arts industry. The legislation also includes a demonstration project to promote the creative arts in local economic planning and support to artists trying to get back on their feet after a disaster.
Read more about the bill in this op-ed in The Hill authored by Sen. Udall and Robert L. Lynch, president & CEO of Americans for the Arts. Linked here is the Senator's press release, and here is a one-pager from the Senator.
On Arts Advocacy Day, Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) announced new legislation to strengthen the creative economy to a crowd of over 500 arts advocates.
Entitled Comprehensive Resources for Entrepreneurs in the Arts to Transform the Economy (CREATE) Act (S.2648), the comprehensive bill aims to better support our nation's creative economy and builds off of research of numerous economic studies, including Arts and Economic Prosperity findings.
Through minor adjustments to existing federal programs in agencies like the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Treasury, the legislation takes steps to better invest in our country's workforce and creative economy, while recognizing artists as contributors to the small business community. It does this through three titles: 1) Support for artists and entrepreneurs; 2) Support for the creative economy, and 3) Creative community development.
Provisions include direction that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) works with micro-lenders, traditional lenders, and regulators to ensure that artists and entrepreneurs have access to micro-loans and that loan program criteria are not discriminatory toward arts-related businesses. There is also a requirement that the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and Rural Development Administration ensure that traditional economic development tools, such as incubators and grant programs, support the arts industry. The legislation also includes a demonstration project to promote the creative arts in local economic planning and support to artists trying to get back on their feet after a disaster.
Read more about the bill in this op-ed in The Hill authored by Sen. Udall and Robert L. Lynch, president & CEO of Americans for the Arts. Linked here is the Senator's press release, and here is a one-pager from the Senator.
Through minor adjustments to existing federal programs in agencies like the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Treasury, the legislation takes steps to better invest in our country's workforce and creative economy, while recognizing artists as contributors to the small business community. The Senate bill is S.661 and the House companion bill is H.R. 1649.
Provisions include:
- Access to small business micro-loans and ensuring that loan program criteria are not discriminatory toward arts-related businesses;
- Economic development tools, such as incubators and technical assistance, to support the creative economy;
- Promotion and grant programs to support the creative arts in local economic development planning;
- Assistance to artists trying to get back on their feet after a disaster;
- Creation of an Artist Corps within the Corporation for National and Community Service to help expand access to arts and arts education in communities.
Importantly, the announcement today from President Trump includes specific support for the charitable tax deduction and protecting it in tax reform. It is short on further details, but this is promising news, especially since earlier Trump Administration proposals included recommendations for caps on charitable tax deductions.
Take two minutes now to contact your member of Congress to let them know that you support charitable giving. Call on them to preserve incentives for charitable giving by protecting the full scope and value of the tax deduction for all forms of charitable gifts, and ensure that changes made under tax reform will encourage more giving by more Americans.
To get the latest on other tax proposals and their impact -- including the impact of proposals to double the standard deduction for individual taxpayers -- as well as Americans for the Arts "Statement on Tax Reform and the Charitable Contribution Deduction," please visit the Arts Mobilization Center.