18). Assessing the economic impact of the arts on these communities allowed the researchers to then produce a national impact estimate, the results of which were stated above.
Ultimately, the researchers found that when communities "support the arts, [they] not only enhance the quality of community life but also invest in their economic well-being" (Cohen, Schaffer, & Davidson, 2003, p. 30). The researchers concluded by noting that while "the very legitimate question remains as to whether economic impact should be the rationale for increasing funding and access opportunities for the arts […] at this time in history, economic development is perhaps the most persuasive message when making the case for arts support to local, state, and national leaders" (Cohen, Schaffer, & Davidson, 2003, p. 31). To understand why the researchers presumed that the economic argument in support of the arts is the most persuasive, one must consider the second attitude regarding the public funding of the arts that encourages leaders to cut funding for the arts first when attempting to tamp down budgets.
As mentioned above, the arts are often the first things to be cut during budgetary planning because "they are often perceived to be luxuries, worth supporting in good times but hard to justify when the economy is struggling," regardless of the tangible (but under-reported) societal and economic benefits they provide (Cohen, Schaffer, & Davidson, 2003, p. 17). However, this attitude represents only one side of the issue, because even when considering these benefits, there remains unease "about having the government decide which works and kinds of works of art merit support, given the role that art can play in the formation and sustenance of moral conceptions" (Brighouse, 1995, p. 36). This means that anyone attempting to understand the budgetary issues faced by the arts must recognize that at any given point, there is a sizable constituency that believes the government should have no role in the creation and dissemination of artistic works, regardless of the potential benefits.
For reasons stemming from the increased political polarization of the last thirty years, "it is even harder than has usually been thought for liberals to legitimately advocate state funding of the arts" in the face of "conservative attacks on the functions of the democratic state in America" in regards to arts funding (Brighouse, 1995, p. 35). This is not suggest that support or opposition for public funding of the arts necessarily aligns to political or party affiliation, but rather is simply a recognition that public funding for the arts has been a traditionally liberal policy goal, such as the aforementioned case of the Works Progress Administration, and that the ascendancy of American conservatism over the course of the last thirty years has brought with it an attendant focus on constraining and controlling public support of the arts. In fact, one of the motivating factors contributing to Brighouse's analysis of attitudes regarding state funding of the arts was the 1989 passage of the so-called Helms amendment to the National Endowment for the Arts budget, which stated that:
None of the funds authorized to be appropriated pursuant to this act may be used to promote, disseminate, or produce
(1) obscene or indecent materials, including but not limited to depictions of sadomasochism, homoeroticism, the exploitation of children, or individuals engaged in sex acts; or (2) materials which denigrate the objects or beliefs of the adherents of a particular religion or non-religion; or (3) material which denigrates, debases, or reviles a person, group, or class of citizens on the base of race, creed, sex, handicap, age, or national origin. (1989 NEA Appropriations Bill, in Brighouse, 1995, p. 59)
As Brighouse rightly points out, the problem with the amendment is not that it constitutes censorship, because denying funds for expression is not nearly the same thing as actively limiting expression, but rather that the language of the amendment singles out one group for undue, implicit criticism (homosexuals) while effectively neutering any funded art by prohibiting based on the possibility that it might offend people of "a particular religion or non-religion," which is to say, anyone (Brighouse, 1995, p. 60). The latter issue reveals that the point of the Helm's amendment is not so much to censor publicly-funded art, but rather to end the practice of funding the arts altogether through incremental legislative action. This gradual de-funding of the arts on the national level has reverberated throughout the states as well, and research has shown that while State Arts Agencies accounted...
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