“President Obama’s proposed federal budget for the coming 2014-15 fiscal year would lift spending 3.5% overall for the six main federal arts and culture agencies but provide no increase for the three grant-making bodies that disburse money to nonprofit groups outside Washington, D.C.,” writes Mike Boehm in Wednesday’s (3/5) Los Angeles Times. “The president’s new plan would continue to leave federal arts spending below where it stood before the budget sequestration cuts that went into effect last March but were partly undone when a new federal budget year began last October…. Obama’s new plan would leave annual funding unchanged for two grant-making agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, each at $146 million.… The president also aims to keep the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ allocation unchanged at $22 million, reserving his entire proposed arts increase for museums—the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution, both of which offer free admission.”
Posted March 6, 2014
