The Real Cost of Abolishing the National Endowment for the Arts
President Trump’s budget proposal would have a disproportionate impact on organizations in rural and underserved communities.
On Thursday morning, President Trump’s proposal for the federal budget confirmed a fact long suspected: of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Together, the four groups receive less than a billion dollars a year, with the NEA and the NEH costing taxpayers $148 million a year each—approximately 0.004 percent of the federal budget individually.Their elimination would be largely symbolic, signaling the Trump administration’s intent to slash spending it sees as as the NEA’s annual allotment on a border wall whose efficacy even Republican lawmakers .
