[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    THE POWER, PERIL, AND PROMISE OF THE 
                               CREATIVE ECONOMY

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
                             UNITED STATES
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD
                              
                            JANUARY 19, 2022

                               __________

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
                               

            Small Business Committee Document Number 117-043
             Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov
             
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
46-711 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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                   HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS

                 NYDIA VELAZQUEZ, New York, Chairwoman
                          JARED GOLDEN, Maine
                          JASON CROW, Colorado
                         SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas
                         KWEISI MFUME, Maryland
                        DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
                         MARIE NEWMAN, Illinois
                       CAROLYN BOURDEAUX, Georgia
                         TROY CARTER, Louisiana
                          JUDY CHU, California
                       DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania
                       ANTONIO DELGADO, New York
                     CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania
                          ANDY KIM, New Jersey
                         ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
              BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri, Ranking Member
                         ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
                        JIM HAGEDORN, Minnesota
                        PETE STAUBER, Minnesota
                        DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
                        CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York
                       ANDREW GARBARINO, New York
                         YOUNG KIM, California
                         BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
                         BYRON DONALDS, Florida
                         MARIA SALAZAR, Florida
                      SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin

                 Melissa Jung, Majority Staff Director
            Ellen Harrington, Majority Deputy Staff Director
                     David Planning, Staff Director
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
                                                                   
Hon. Dean Phillips...............................................     1
Hon. Blaine Luetkemeyer..........................................     3

                               WITNESSES

Mr. Carson Elrod, Co-Founder & Co-Leader, Be An #ArtsHero, 
  Director of Government Affairs, Arts Workers United, Brooklyn, 
  NY.............................................................     5
Ms. Nataki Garrett, Artistic Director, Oregon Shakespeare 
  Festival, Ashland, OR..........................................     7
Ms. Sandra Karas, Secretary-Treasurer, Actors' Equity 
  Association, New York, NY......................................     9
Ms. Raeanne Presley, Co-Owner, Presleys' Country Jubilee 
  (Presleys' Theater), Branson, MO, testifying on behalf of the 
  National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), Plains Chapter, 
  in her role as Secretary.......................................    10

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:
    Mr. Carson Elrod, Co-Founder & Co-Leader, Be An #ArtsHero, 
      Director of Government Affairs, Arts Workers United, 
      Brooklyn, NY...............................................    37
    Ms. Nataki Garrett, Artistic Director, Oregon Shakespeare 
      Festival, Ashland, OR......................................    57
    Ms. Sandra Karas, Secretary-Treasurer, Actors' Equity 
      Association, New York, NY..................................    60
    Ms. Raeanne Presley, Co-Owner, Presleys' Country Jubilee 
      (Presleys' Theater), Branson, MO, testifying on behalf of 
      the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), Plains 
      Chapter, in her role as Secretary..........................    63
Questions and Answers for the Record:
    Questions from Hon. Troy Carter and Answers from Mr. Carson 
      Elrod......................................................    68
    Question from Hon. Troy Carter and Answers from Ms. Sandra 
      Karas......................................................    77
Additional Material for the Record:
    Ann Marie Miller Letter......................................    78
    Bean Gilsdorf Letter.........................................    80
    Brian McClean Letter.........................................    81
    Brian Marquis Letter.........................................    82
    Christin Crampton Day Letter.................................    83
    Craig Coogan Letter..........................................    85
    Damon Grant Letter...........................................    86
    David HB Drake Letter........................................    88
    Deborah Stewart Letter.......................................    90
    DPE AFL-CIO AEMI DEI Policy Agenda...........................    91
    DPE - Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO Letter..    93
    Emma Goidel Letter...........................................    96
    Emmi S. Herman Letter........................................    98
    Gabe Long Letter.............................................    99
    Gwenn Seemel Letter..........................................   100
    Hattie Schapiro Letter.......................................   101
    J. Murphy Letter.............................................   102
    Jacob Harvey Letter..........................................   103
    Jacqueline K. Dace Letter....................................   104
    Janet Mullet Letter..........................................   105
    Jay Dunn Letter..............................................   106
    Jayeesha Dutta Letter........................................   107
    Jorge Delara Letter..........................................   108
    Joshua T. Bennett Letter.....................................   114
    Kate Robin Letter............................................   115
    Kerri Wood Einertson Statement...............................   117
    Lily Kephart Letter..........................................   121
    Lora Bottinelli Letter.......................................   122
    Mara Jill Herman Letter......................................   124
    Rachael Viscidy Letter.......................................   125
    San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed, Chicago Mayor Lori E. 
      Lightfoot and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney Statement......   126
    Sarah Schulz Letter..........................................   129
    Susan Parks Letter...........................................   130
    Vella Lovell Letter..........................................   131
    William Baxter Letter........................................   133
    Winnie Holzman Letter........................................   134
    Abigail Engstrand Letter.....................................   135
    Alex! Jimenez Letter.........................................   137
    Alice Klugherz aka wonderland/wizehart Letter................   138
    Amanda Andrews Letter........................................   140
    Americans for the Arts.......................................   141
    Andy Gaines Letter...........................................   159
    Aria McKenna Letter..........................................   160
    Arts Alliance Illinois.......................................   161
    Arts in a Changing America...................................   162
    Arts Management..............................................   164
    Arts of the Bering Strait Region.............................   166
    Arts Workers United..........................................   186
    Authors Guild................................................   282
    Beth Jucovy Letter...........................................   291
    Blue Star Contemporary.......................................   292
    Brooke Smiley Letter.........................................   294
    Byron Lenair Letter..........................................   295
    Carnegie Hall Corporation....................................   296
    Craft Emergency Relief Fund..................................   300
    CONTRA-TIEMPO................................................   306
    Dance/NYC....................................................   307
    Dance/USA....................................................   316
    Denise G. Johnson Letter.....................................   319
    Denver Arts & Venues.........................................   320
    Dia Scott Letter.............................................   321
    Elizabeth Miller Letter......................................   322
    Eric Ragan Letter............................................   323
    Georgia Kung Letter..........................................   325
    Georgy Rock - Story Lady Letter..............................   326
    Get Creative Workers Working Coalition.......................   327
    Jack Becker Letter...........................................   413
    Jeanie Bergen Letter.........................................   414
    Jessica Snow Letter..........................................   415
    John Kristiansen New York, Inc. Letter.......................   416
    Kady Yellow Letter...........................................   420
    Winifred Helton-Harmon Letter................................   422
    Krys Holmes Letter...........................................   423
    League of American Orchestras................................   424
    League of Wisconsin Municipalities...........................   428
    Lesley Currier Letter........................................   429
    Lexie Peveto Letter..........................................   430
    Linda Storm Letter...........................................   438
    Lucy Yeghiazaryan Letter.....................................   439
    Mallory Portnoy Letter.......................................   440
    Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts.............   441
    Michael Grasso Letter........................................   443
    New Yorkers for Culture & Arts...............................   444
    Nicolette McDermott-Ketchum Letter...........................   449
    OPERA America................................................   451
    Pam Breaux Letter............................................   454
    Potri Ranka Manis Letter.....................................   457
    Rachel Austin Letter.........................................   459
    Ragan Rhodes Letter..........................................   460
    Recording Academy............................................   462
    Robin Bronk Letter...........................................   466
    Society of Composers & Lyricists.............................   468
    Sophie Peyton Letter.........................................   471
    Steven Kidd Letter...........................................   472
    Taurie Kinoshita Letter......................................   475
    Texas Folklife...............................................   476
    Texans for the Arts..........................................   478
    Thea Martinez Letter.........................................   480
    Theatre Communications Group.................................   481
    West Baltimore Re-Imagining and Redevelopment Project........   485
    WESTAF and the Western Arts Advocacy Network.................   489
    Wise Fool New Mexico.........................................   492

 
         THE POWER, PERIL, AND PROMISE OF THE CREATIVE ECONOMY

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2022

                  House of Representatives,
               Committee on Small Business,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 
2360, Rayburn House Office Building and via Zoom, Hon. Dean 
Phillips [member of the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Phillips, Golden, Mfume, Delgado, 
Craig, Davids, Newman, Bourdeaux, Chu, Evans, Houlahan, Kim of 
New Jersey, Luetkemeyer, Williams, Stauber, Meuser, Tenney, 
Garbarino, Young Kim of California, Van Duyne, and Fitzgerald.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. Good morning. I call this hearing to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess at any time.
    And I would like to begin as we always do now to note some 
important requirements. Let me begin by saying that standing 
House and Committee rules and practice will continue to apply 
during remote proceedings. House regulations require the 
Members to be visible through a video connection throughout the 
proceeding, so please keep your cameras on and remain muted 
until you are recognized to minimize background noise.
    In the event a Member encounters technical issues that 
prevent him or her from being recognized for their questioning, 
I will move to the next available Member of the same party and 
I will recognize that Member at the next appropriate time slot 
provided they have returned to the proceeding. Should a 
Member's time be interrupted by technical issues, I will 
recognize that Member at the next appropriate slot for the 
remainder of their time once their issues have been resolved. 
In the event of technical issues, I may need to recess the 
proceedings to address them.
    And with that, let's turn to today's business.
    I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. 
It is a pleasure to have such a talented and accomplished group 
of witnesses representing the arts sector. As you can see, I am 
sitting in for Chairwoman Velazquez, who was unable to Chair 
this hearing today.
    The arts sector, an important sector, employs nearly 5.2 
million Americans and contributes $919 billion to our national 
economy. In my congressional district, the influence of the 
creative economy is all over the place. Writers, photographers, 
musicians, and designers launch small businesses, employ 
workers, and help Minnesota make it great through their art.
    But the impact of the arts economy is not confined to 
America's largest cities. It is evident in every part of the 
country. America's 675,000 art-centered businesses are present 
in every congressional district throughout the nation. 
Unfortunately, the pandemic has touched nearly every business 
in the arts economy.
    Creative businesses and workers usually rely on in-person 
gatherings and live events to sustain their enterprises. 
However, as the virus spread throughout the country, lead 
Americans to stay home and socially distance. Ninety-nine 
percent of entertainment productions canceled events throughout 
the pandemic so far, resulting in a loss of $557 million in 
ticketed admissions alone. At the height of the pandemic, 63 
percent of creative workers experienced unemployment and 95 
percent lost creative income.
    The live events industry is a crucial component of the 
creative economy that has struggled greatly throughout the 
pandemic. This industry comprises not only theatres and music 
venues, but also musicians and performers and those that 
support live events such as planners, caterers, designers, and 
so much more. These workers and small businesses have seen 
precipitous declines in revenue due to the ongoing COVID-19 
pandemic and related public health concerns, with countless 
events and gatherings being canceled or delayed for now the 
third year in a row.
    To help mitigate the impact of the pandemic on this 
industry, Congress created the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant 
program, known as SVOG, as many have come to know it. To date, 
the program has delivered over $13 billion in grants to 
struggling venues throughout the country. This funding has 
helped many businesses, including several in my district, avoid 
permanent closure.
    However, SVOG was not accessible to the many independent 
contractors and small business owners that comprise the broader 
live events industry, leaving them totally out in the cold. 
Last August, I held a listening session with business owners in 
the live events industry in Minnesota and heard heartbreaking 
stories of dreams delayed and hardships faced. And 5 months 
later, Congress has yet to take action.
    It is crucial that we pass additional small business 
targeted relief to help those small businesses most impacted by 
the growing ongoing pandemic, including those in the live 
events industry itself. These funds would help business owners 
keep their doors open and workers employed, and it would help 
strengthen our economic recovery as well with the understanding 
that arts and culture are the second-highest sector for value 
added per dollar in the United States' economy.
    It is important to note as well, the benefits of the arts 
go well beyond economic. They have a substantial impact on our 
country's social, civic, and cultural well-being. Alongside 
preserving and celebrating culture, research shows that as 
creative and artistic enterprises arise, ancillary businesses 
are more likely to form around them, creating jobs and 
stimulating local economies.
    But the wounds the pandemic inflicted on the arts economy 
are deep and painful and potentially long lasting. If we want 
the industry to return to pre-COVID trends and continue to be 
an economic engine for local communities, these businesses need 
more support and investment. Investing in the creative economy 
will help this crucial sector recover while also fueling 
overall economic growth for the United States.
    So today, I hope this hearing allows us to examine the 
challenges that those operating in the creative economy 
continue to face. I also look forward to discussing policies 
that can help support this important sector to all of us.
    With that, I would like to yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. 
Luetkemeyer, for his opening statement.
    Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate 
you filling in for the Chairwoman this morning.
    As COVID-19 continues to disrupt daily lives, we have seen 
Americans double down on their cultural and creative 
consumption to regain a sense of normalcy. In addition to the 
creative arts ability to provide individuals with comfort, joy, 
and even hope during the challenging times, the arts can also 
ignite economic growth and recovery after hardship strikes. 
Creative organizations and enterprises are revenue and job 
generators not only within their immediate sphere but also act 
as a catalyst, stimulating economic activity in adjacent 
sectors such as tourism, hospitality, transportation, 
restaurants, and many others. Culture and the arts are not 
confined only to metropolitan areas. In fact, rural and 
heartland communities also have their own significant 
reservoirs of homegrown creative assets that can be mobilized 
for social, cultural, and economic good.
    Nationwide, the creative economy generated an impressive 
4.3 percent of our nation's gross domestic product, or $919.7 
billion in 2019. The creative arts employed nearly 5.2 million 
workers prior to the pandemic, accounting for nearly 3.3 
percent of the United States' workforce.
    Unfortunately, this industry has not been immune to the 
COVID-19 crisis. During the worst of the pandemic, nearly all 
entertainment events were canceled creating significant 
financial losses across the board of businesses themselves, 
local governments, and adjacent businesses reliant on their 
success.
    At the same time, employment in this sector plunged, and 
while there has been some increase, workers in the creative 
arts sphere remain among some of the most heavily affected with 
11 percent more unemployment rates than compared to pre-
pandemic levels.
    2021 ushered in a tentative rebound in the creative sector 
over the past year. However, there are several major stressors 
threatening to reverse this fragile recovery. The Omicron 
variant of the corona-virus threatens to usher in a new wave of 
closures and restrictions devastating to arts industries 
reliant on human interaction. The meteoric rise in inflation is 
manifesting in higher supply costs, threatening businesses 
whose financial cap is already severely strained for weathering 
a 2-year pandemic, wage hikes, and rents locking in at higher 
prices. Unlike large businesses who may have deeper financial 
reserves, small businesses are often financed by owners' 
personal savings placing them in grave personal financial risk 
during periods of high inflation.
    Increased inflation means less buying power which in turn 
translates to a decreased ability to hire and retain qualified 
employees. Unfortunately, with last week's Consumer Price Index 
reading of 7 percent and the wholesale inflation rising to 9.7 
percent year over year, a challenging economic environment for 
small business will continue. Unlike other industries who may 
be able to take advantage of automation and technology to 
replace people, the creative arts rely deeply on human skill 
and ingenuity.
    As a sitting Member of Congress and Ranking Member of this 
Committee, it is my distinct honor and privilege to welcome our 
witnesses today. I would like to thank all of you for 
participation. I look forward to your conversation.
    Mr. Chairman, with that I yield back.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you, Mr. Luetkemeyer.
    And now I would like to take a moment to explain how the 
hearing will proceed. Each witness will have 5 minutes to 
provide a statement and each Committee Member will have 5 
minutes for questioning. Please ensure that your microphone is 
on when you begin speaking and that you please return to mute 
when you are finished.
    With that, I would like to introduce our witness for the 
day.
    Our first witness Mr. Carson Elrod. Mr. Elrod has been a 
fierce activist in the creative sector, most notably as a 
cofounder and coleader and director of Government Affairs for 
Arts Workers United, Be An #ArtsHero. Arts Workers United is an 
arts advocacy organization dedicated to establishing the arts 
and culture sector of the United States by means of support, 
investment, and representation. When he is not championing for 
arts and culture workers, Mr. Elrod is a professional actor who 
has appeared in live theater, motion pictures, on Broadway, and 
much more.
    We welcome you, Mr. Elrod.
    Our second witness is Ms. Nataki Garrett. A change maker 
and trailblazer, Ms. Garrett is a nationally recognized 
director and the sixth artistic director of the Oregon 
Shakespeare Festival (OSF). The first woman to artistically 
lead a $44 million theater company and OSF's first Black female 
in the role. Prior to her role at OSF, she served as our acting 
artistic director at the Denver Center Theater Company, as well 
as associate dean and the co-head of the Undergraduate Acting 
Program at the CalArts School of Theater. We welcome you, Ms. 
Garrett.
    Our third witness is Ms. Sandra Karas. Ms. Karas has 
married her passion of arts and advocacy, serving as the 
secretary Treasurer of Actors' Equity Association, a union of 
professional stage actors and stage managers in the United 
States. She is a licensed tax and finance attorney and serves 
as the director of the New York City Volunteer Income tax 
assistance program, sits on the Board of Directors of the New 
York Local of Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of 
television and radio artists, and is even an actor herself.
    We welcome you, Ms. Karas.
    And now I would like to yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. 
Luetkemeyer, to introduce our final witness.
    Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Our next witness is Ms. Reanne Presley. She is a co-owner 
of Presleys' Country Jubilee Theater and Branson Visitor TV. 
Presleys' Theater is a multi-generational, family-owned 
business and was the original live music theater in Branson, 
Missouri, Hosting its first show on June 30, 1967. In addition 
to being a small business owner, Ms. Presley is a devoted 
community leader. She became the first woman elected Mayor of 
Branson in 2007 and went on to serve 4 terms. She has 
previously served as branch of City Council, all of them for 10 
years. Prior to her government service, Ms. Presley was Chair 
of the Missouri Tourism Commission and served in leadership 
positions on several community boards, including as Chair of 
the board of directors at Skaggs Community Hospital and Board 
of Directors of the Springfield and Branson National Airport, 
and the Branson Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce. Due to her hard 
work and exemplary leadership skills, Ms. Presley was honored 
as the recipient of the Missourian award in 2009. In addition 
to her sending her own views as a small business owner, Ms. 
Presley is here representing a National Independent Venues 
Association (NIVA), formed in mid-April of 2020 in response to 
the ill effects of the COVID-pandemic. NIVA Members include 
many small, independent venues, promoters, and festivals across 
the entire nation.
    Ms. Presley, it is a pleasure having you testify before 
this committee. I look forward to your valuable insights I know 
you will provide today. It is good to see you again. Ms. 
Presley and I, just for clarification purposes, worked together 
when I was the Division of Tourism Director in the State of 
Missouri and she was the leader in the Brandon area for all of 
the different tourism activities and venues there. So it is 
great to see you again, Reanne and welcome to the Committee.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. We are going to expect you to sing a song, 
Mr. Ranking Member.
    Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Well, that is a good way to have us send 
everybody off.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. For short hearings. Anyway, thank you, sir. 
Thank you to all our witnesses for being here today.
    And with that, I now recognize Mr. Elrod for your opening 
statement for 5 minutes.

   STATEMENTS OF CARSON ELROD, CO-FOUNDER & CO-LEADER, BE AN 
#ARTSHERO, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, ARTS WORKERS UNITED; 
NATAKI GARRETT, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL; 
SANDRA KARAS, SECRETARY-TREASURER, ACTORS' EQUITY ASSOCIATION; 
RAEANNE PRESLEY, CO-OWNER, PRESLEYS' COUNTRY JUBILEE (PRESLEYS' 
                            THEATER)

                   STATEMENT OF CARSON ELROD

    Mr. ELROD. Thank you, sir. Chairman Phillips, Ranking 
Member Luetkemeyer, esteemed Members of the Small Business 
Committee, thank you so much for your invitation to join 
today's groundbreaking hearing.
    I am an arts worker. I am a professional actor and one of 
the 5.2 million Americans that animate our creative economy. 
Arts workers like me support over 673,000 businesses, many of 
them small, that add $919 billion in value to our nation's 
economy. That is five times more than agriculture and nearly 
$300 billion more than all of transportation.
    We are big business because we are local business, from 
Kansas to Kentucky and Alaska to Alabama. Every state in the 
union is home to tens of thousands of arts workers whose labor 
contributes more than a billion dollars to each state's GSP.
    Our arts institutions are like stars that anchor a dynamic 
solar system of ancillary businesses. You build a theater or a 
museum and you can watch hotels, restaurants, and other small 
businesses grow up around them. The socioeconomic light of our 
creative businesses strengthens communities and stimulates 
their economies.
    Our nation's creative economy is in peril. In January of 
2020, I had just been cast in a role in a television show that 
promised to be a gamechanger for me both professionally and 
financially. On March 13, 2020, that job evaporated and I 
joined 2.7 million of my fellow arts workers for 15 months of 
total unemployment. During this time, I joined Brooke 
Ishibashi, Jenny Grace Makholm, and Matthew-Lee Erlbach in 
starting Be An #ArtsHero and Arts Workers United to 
relentlessly campaign for federal relief, recovery, and a 
hearing just like this one.
    I was grateful to Congress for the Federal Pandemic 
Unemployment Compensation program, but even as the pandemic 
persists, that pandemic relief, like my jobs, has evaporated. 
And without union work, I lost my union health insurance. For 
the first time in my life I am on Medicaid. My last show got 
canceled because I, with my cast, caught COVID. I had an 
upcoming show this spring. It has been canceled because of 
COVID.
    My story is not unique. While I had some savings and the 
privilege to dedicate my life to this advocacy, so many, 
especially in the BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and disabled communities have 
been disproportionately impacted by this pandemic and they do 
not have it as good as I do. And I think I have it pretty bad.
    I am still haunted by a conversation I had with Patsy 
Bouressa from the SIMS Foundation in Austin, Texas. They 
provide mental health services for music workers. In just 1 
month, four of their clients became so hopeless that they 
killed themselves. We cannot let the human infrastructure of 
our creative economy vanish into other industries or worse. The 
loss to our families, our culture, our communities, and future 
generations and the economy would be incalculable.
    Arts workers should be the backbone of our post-COVID 
recovery. The creative economy is a jobs multiplier with a 
normal growth rate of 4.45 percent. That is nearly double that 
of the rest of the economy. And the human need to gather, to 
find community, to share cultural experiences will be enormous 
after this pandemic. Congress can translate that need into 
strategic investments that will jumpstart the American recovery 
built on imagination, innovation, creativity, and community. To 
accomplish this, I recommend that:
    Congress commission a GAO report to fully explore what 
Congress can and should do to stabilize and stimulate the 
creative economy.
    Ensure that unemployed American arts workers retain 
unemployment benefits so that arts workers can stay arts 
workers.
    Immediately pass the Performing Arts Tax Parity Act, the 
Create the Place, that HITS Arts, the Arts Education for All 
Act, the Creative Economy Revitalization Act, and the 21st 
Century Federal Writers Project.
    Finally, Congress should work with the president to create 
a secretary of Arts and Culture.
    You have the opportunity to ignite not just a sunrise but a 
supernova of creative small businesses, triggering a chain 
reaction of such socioeconomic prosperity that history will 
remember this Congress as the Congress that provided the rocket 
fuel needed to launch us into the new American century defined 
by the incredible specialized labor of American arts workers 
and the 21st Century American Creative Economy that they drive. 
Thank you so much.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you, Mr. Elrod.
    And now I would like to recognize Ms. Garrett for 5 minutes 
for your opening statement. Ms. Garrett?

                  STATEMENT OF NATAKI GARRETT

    Ms. GARRETT. Thank you very much for recognizing me, 
Chairwoman Velazquez, Representative Phillips, Ranking Member 
Luetkemeyer, and the Members of the Committee. I want to thank 
you for inviting me to appear before you today.
    I am the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare 
Festival, otherwise known as OSF. I am honored to be with you 
and share how COVID-19 has affected the arts sector, 
specifically OSF, to highlight our economic and social impact 
and to offer ways Congress can support the recovery of the 
creative economy.
    Founded in 1935, OSF is a Member of the National Theater 
Communication Groups and the Performing Arts Alliance. Prior to 
the pandemic we were a $44 million flagship nonprofit theater 
and one of the largest economic drivers of the southern rural 
Oregon economy. In a typical year, we welcomed over 400,000 
people from all over the world to the town of Ashland, Oregon, 
a town of 20,000 people that has the same density of 
restaurants and hotels per resident as New York and Paris. OSF 
generates more than a quarter billion dollars of economic 
activity in the region annually, and we are responsible for a 
full 20 percent of its economic activity overall. Simply put, 
the arts are a powerful economic engine that drives our region.
    In March of 2020, we had just opened our season, my first 
as artistic director. Within 6 days of opening, COVID forced us 
to shut it all down. We had already spent about $20 million to 
get the shows ready for the stage and patrons had paid more 
than $6 million for tickets that had to now be refunded. And 
over the next few weeks, 90 percent of OSF's nearly 500 
employees, including actors, crewmembers, carpenters, box 
office staff, craft artisans were laid off. Eight hundred 
twenty-nine performances of our 11 scheduled productions were 
shuttered and 2,300 community engagement and education events 
were canceled. Within a month, we laid off 500. That 500 led to 
5,000 in our town and 20,000 across the region.
    In September of the same year, the Alameda fire struck 
through the region and destroyed more than 2,000 homes and 
businesses, including the homes of some of the remaining OSF 
employees. We set up a food bank, provided emergency housing, 
and dedicated a significant part of our annual gala to the 
relief effort.
    I am haunted by the choices I had to make to keep OSF 
afloat. But it is even more difficult for the culturally-
specific and smaller venue or community-based arts 
organizations and their arts workers. Their work has a huge 
impact on the creative economy and often goes under resourced. 
I think about the hundreds of thousands of artists around this 
country who drive so much of our economy but themselves live in 
poverty. How can we continue viewing an industry that makes up 
more of our GDP than agriculture and mining combined as a 
luxury or a purview of the elite? How do we look millions of 
arts and cultural workers in this country in the eye and not 
take simple, common sense steps to simultaneously make their 
lives and our economy more secure and robust? How can we 
continue cutting arts programs in schools when we know that 
students who participate in arts education are more likely to 
go to college and less likely to go to jail? The reality is 
that the infusion of federal dollars, along with the generosity 
of our donors and patrons, without that it is likely that I 
would not be here today because OSF would not be here today. I 
am very thankful for the assistance this Committee provided 
through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, formerly 
known as SOS and other forms of COVID relief.
    At OSF, we have a tradition. Following the curtain call of 
our last outdoor play each season, every person in the company 
carries a candle and silently enters a darkened theater to the 
strains of Greensleeves. A veteran company Members speaks 
Prospero's speech from act IV Scene 1 of The Tempest. It is 
like a prayer. ``Our revels now have ended . . . '' It is a 
promise, 1,200 audience Members from all walks of life hang on 
every line. The candles are extinguished and the company 
silently and reverently exits the theater. It marks the ending 
of a season of hard work and beautiful art making and the 
promise that the house lights will be rekindled once more.
    In 2020, I was afraid that those candles had gone out 
forever. But I am here to tell you that we will make sure that 
the creative economy endures. As an artistic director, I am 
committed to ensuring that those candles burn bright and those 
words are spoken for years to come.
    The power you hold, you can assure the flickering candle of 
the creative economy can continue to burn bright. Right now, 
bills such as the Creative Economy Revitalization Act and the 
Performing Arts Parity Act and the Arts for Education for All 
Act, bipartisan bills that positively impact the economies of 
every state and enjoy broad public support, are waiting for 
Congress to act. It is not a radical act, nor is it 
controversial. It is recognizing a simple fact that the arts 
and the artists drive local economies and at the same time lift 
people out of darkness.
    I thank you for this time and thank you for what you will 
do next. And I look forward to your questions. Thank you very 
much.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you so much, Ms. Garrett.
    And now I would like to recognize Ms. Karas for 5 minutes 
for your opening statement. Ms. Karas?

                   STATEMENT OF SANDRA KARAS

    Ms. KARAS. Chairman Phillips, Ranking Member Luetkemeyer, 
thank you for the invitation today. I am Sandra Karas, an 
actor, Secretary-Treasurer of Actors' Equity Association, and a 
Member of SAG-AFTRA's New York local board. I also appear 
before you as a small business owner. I am a tax attorney, 
accountant, and financial advisor with a practice here in New 
York. You are going to hear today about the power of the 
creative economy, and the live arts in particular, rightly so. 
The arts and culture sector is responsible for 5.2 million jobs 
and 4.3 percent of the GDP. The live arts have a huge halo 
effect on small business, many of which would not exist without 
the arts. Patrons spend on restaurants, parking, taxis, hotels, 
childcare. Nationally, that amounts to more than $100 billion 
in additional spending.
    The creative economy drives revenue growth for business and 
workers. The reason, unions. I am speaking to you today on 
behalf of Actors' Equity Association, the union of actors and 
stage managers in the live theater. Our Members work across the 
country Los Angeles' 99-seat non-profits, to Kansas City's 
Starlight Theater and St. Louis' Rep, to Buffalo's Kavinoky 
Theater, and the Wintergarden on Broadway, and everywhere in 
between. Our contracts include healthcare and pensions. As the 
original gig workers, we are the proof that companies need not 
choose between profits and W-2 employee protections.
    The pandemic has indeed created a crisis. While many 
businesses have recovered, the new variant has brought 
tremendous uncertainty and job loss and a live arts performance 
once again just last week had closed in IRIS. Earnings and 
health insurance were put at risk. When live events close, the 
small businesses that depended on them also feel the crunch. 
There is one way you can help all of us arts workers. Congress 
has an opportunity to pass the Performing Artist Tax Parity Act 
(PATPA), which modernizes a provision enacted by President 
Ronald Reagan and will provide relief to entertainment workers. 
Performing artists pay a high percentage of their income on 
necessary out-of-pocket costs to look for work and stay current 
in the industry. We pay agents and managers, transportation to 
auditions, maintain our websites, headshots, video reels, and 
more. It can amount to 20 to 30 percent of our gross income. 
Previously this was deductible. Because of an unintended 
consequence of tax reform, we lost the deductions of our 
unreimbursed business expenses. This means a tax increase, 
often of thousands of dollars for working-class artists. I have 
seen heartbreaking stories at the Volunteer Income Tax 
Assistance Program, here at our Equity office, where volunteers 
process thousands of free tax returns annually for low-income 
arts workers. One young taxpayer, upon learning that his 
liability increased by more than 30 percent, wondered aloud how 
he was going to pay his rent.
    As we return to work, the last thing we need is a tax code 
that punishes us for seeking work. This bill is targeted to 
low-income and middle-class taxpayers, not the high-earning 
stars.
    I commend Representatives Chu and Buchanan for leading the 
effort to pass this bill in the House. Thank you, also to 
Representatives Newman and Garbarino for cosponsoring. I ask 
you all for your support. PATPA is Equity's top legislative 
priority and it is endorsed by unions and employers. But it is 
not our only priority. We also released a federal policy agenda 
for inclusion in the arts, in partnership with our fellow arts 
unions. The National Endowment for the Arts should create a 
chief diversity officer to drive inclusion deeper into the 
grant process. And we strongly support the CROWN Act to end 
hair discrimination in our industry.
    On behalf of all the arts unions, I want to thank the Small 
Business Committee for helping to make sure that unions were 
treated fairly during the pandemic by allowing access to the 
Paycheck Protection Program. Our staff worked harder than ever 
and this program was a lifeline to them and to our employers.
    I will conclude today where I started. The arts sector is a 
robust contributor to our national economy because of a strong 
union presence, not in spite of it. In an industry where 
competition is keen and there are more workers than jobs, we 
ensure workers have a voice in their workplace, secure 
standards, and safe working conditions. That is why the PRO Act 
has our full support. It will reform outdated labor laws and 
protect against exploitation and employee misclassification, 
which is unfortunately far too common in our industry. It will 
help the arts and culture sector, and workers, prosper into the 
next century. That is the true promise of the creative economy.
    I thank you for the privilege of appearing before you 
today.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you, Ms. Karas.
    And now, Ms. Presley, you are recognized for 5 minutes for 
your opening statement.

                  STATEMENT OF RAEANNE PRESLEY

    Ms. PRESLEY. Good morning, Chairman Phillips, Ranking 
Member Luetkemeyer, and distinguished Members of this 
Committee. Thank you for inviting me to add my voice to today's 
hearing.
    My name is Raeanne Presley and I join you from my home in 
Branson, Missouri. I am co-owner of Presleys' Country Jubilee, 
along with my husband Steve and in-laws, Gary and Pat Presley.
    As a former mayor of Branson and former Chair of the 
Missouri Tourism Commission, I can attest that family friendly 
entertainment and the creative spirit is at the heart of our 
community.
    In 1967, the Presley family opened the original show on 
Highway 76. Lloyd and Bessie Presley, along with their four 
children, dreamed of entertaining the fishermen and families 
with wholesome comedy and music. Opening Branson's first live 
music theater on a small, unpopulated two-lane road was risky 
but the Presley family was passionate about entertainment and 
determined to make their living at it. They exemplify the 
entrepreneurial spirit that drives our industry and helped to 
build our city.
    This March, Presleys will open our 56th season. Our 1,500 
seat theater which started with folding chairs has expanded 
nine times over the years. We now employ 70 people, produce 
more than 200 events each year, and have a weekly television 
show averaging 300,000 viewers. Our preshow features a gospel 
singalong in our mezzanine, ushers to take you to your seat, 
Coke, popcorn, and cinnamon nuts to enjoy. The heart of our 
show remains the same--to provide lifelong family memories and 
opportunities for folks to forget their troubles for a time.
    Many Branson venues, including Presleys, were fortunate to 
receive Shuttered Venue Operators Grants and PPP loans. We are 
grateful to our elected leaders, especially co-sponsors 
Representative Williams of this Committee, Representative 
Welch, and so many of you who have recognized that our industry 
matters. Without your support for the Save our Stages Act, I 
might not be here today to tell you about the challenges we 
face beyond the pandemic.
    So let me just make sure to say thank you for this lifeline 
for our industry.
    The reaction of our audience when we reopened showed just 
how much people need live entertainment. When the curtain went 
up on that opening song, the audience stood for a sustained 
standing ovation. I heard similar stories from venues coast-to-
coast.
    Our economy also needs live entertainment. A 2019 study 
showed that for every dollar spent at a small venue, $12 of 
economic activity was generated. While Branson's population is 
just over 12,000, our theater and music industry employs nearly 
2,000 people and helps to bring an estimated 8.2 million 
visitors to our region each year. Nationally, more than 80 
percent of adult travelers can be considered cultural tourists. 
They spend more, travel more often, and stay longer. Simply 
put, independent music venues and the creative arts are 
economic engines for communities nationwide.
    Today, the rollercoaster ride of the pandemic continues. 
Traditionally, about 5 percent of ticket buyers do not attend a 
performance but now sagging consumer confidence is causing 
national no-show rates as high as 50 percent. This is 
devastating because most of our venues rely on in-house sales 
to pay core bills.
    We are also now confronted with increased costs due to 
inflation. Just in the past month, I have received notices of 
impending price increases from our trash hauler to our 
concession suppliers to our janitorial service. And like many 
other businesses, we face the difficult challenge of finding 
workers in a competitive environment. Remote work is not an 
option for our business. It is especially challenging to 
compete with national employers who are able to offer higher 
starting wages. The passing of the Save Our Stages Act was a 
break we needed to survive the pandemic. Now in the face of 
increasingly difficult economic conditions, we are looking for 
the break we need in order to thrive.
    I have seen the ability of the creative economy to bring 
Americans to their feet. Out of pure joy amidst the darkness of 
the pandemic, I have seen the power of the creative economy to 
transform a two-lane stretch of blacktop into a world-famous 
tourism destination.
    Thank you for recognizing the importance of our industry 
and the value our small businesses add to communities across 
America. I urge you to keep the creative economy top of mind as 
you consider policies affecting small businesses.
    Thank you for your time and leadership.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. And thank you, Ms. Presley. And to all of our 
witnesses. We appreciate what you have shared with us and you 
very much humanized an issue of great importance to all of us 
on this Committee and to our country.
    Now I would like to begin by recognizing myself for 5 
minutes. And Mr. Elrod, I would like to start with you. You 
have referenced the pendulum of openings and closings and stops 
and starts of so many entertainment businesses. And as you know 
better than anyone, the live events industry in particular has 
been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
    So can you share a little bit more with all of us how are 
theater companies in particular responding to the chaos and 
disruptions of new openings and cancelations due to Omicron in 
particular?
    Mr. ELROD. Well, I think I can speak to my own experience 
in that, you know, the show that I was working on this fall, 
The Alchemist for the Red Bull Theater Company was an off-
Broadway show at the New World Stages in midtown Manhattan. And 
after 15 months of being completely and totally dark, finally 
Broadway was starting to come back. Off-Broadway was starting 
to come back. So here we were. It was a comedy. And despite the 
masks, things were starting to look up and come back to normal. 
But just a few weeks into our run we started to see the impacts 
of Omicron all across the city as different shows had different 
people calling out and especially on Broadway where shows are a 
little bit better resourced with understudies and covers and 
replacements for everybody in the building, even those most-
resourced shows were facing challenges that were ending up 
putting shows on hiatus or closing them altogether. So we were 
kind of watching from the sideline and then on December 15th it 
came to us in the form of me coming to the theater with 
symptoms, taking a Rapid test, seeing a positive result, and 
three other people in the cast got it. And without the 
understudies, without the extra stagehands, the theater was 
faced with only one choice and that was to close the show 
completely. So it is very, very hard.
    As Raeanne Presley said, remote work is not an option. We 
all have to be there in the building. And if we are sick, we 
cannot be in the building. And you can see the consequences 
writ-large all over the country anywhere people have to gather 
together in enclosed spaces.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. I appreciate that and also your advocacy for 
more targeted relief dollars for an industry grappling with the 
challenges and in particular the actors and the artists that 
are so impacted. So thank you.
    Ms. Garrett, you have noted that the Oregon Shakespeare 
Festival received $10 million I believe in SVOG funds and also 
$5 million in PPP funds. Could you share with the Committee in 
more detail how those allocations helped the organization 
survive?
    Ms. GARRETT. Yes. If you can imagine at a $44 million 
organization, our spend rate was $5 million a month. And even 
when we had to shrink everything down to about 10 percent of 
our staff we were still going through a lot of money giving 
back tickets and revenue and that kind of a thing. And keeping 
our lights on and the doors open and all of that stuff. That 
resource is supporting all kinds of things including we were 
able to open a production last summer. We were able to do a 
production, our first winter production that opened and closed 
without any COVID-related closures, thank God. But we are 
spending $200,000 a month on tests just to try to keep people 
aware of whether or not they are sick or not. We have a very 
kind of robust system around making sure that we do have a lot 
of people covering because closing for COVID was not a option 
for us to be able to open that show. And every time we do spend 
money at OSF to make sure that we keep going, we take the 
entire town with us. Everybody comes with us on that journey. 
So the restaurants are open because of the PPP money. The 
hotels are open because of the SVOG money. So in rural Oregon 
we are a complete ecology interconnected with one another. And 
so for every dollar that we received from the federal 
government, every resource, every single dime helped to make 
sure that we could buoy the entire region, especially through 
the fire. And now we have a little bit of resource to be able 
to hopefully open this spring. We are all crossing our fingers 
but this is with a lot of resource being spent in advance to 
get the shows open and a lot of resource being spent for 
testing.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. And I thank you. I see my time is expiring so 
now I would like to recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. 
Luetkemeyer, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I will start out with a question for Ms. Presley here. In 
your testimony here you talk a little bit about dealing with 
inflation, with rising costs, worker problems. Can you 
elaborate a little bit on that from the standpoint of how you 
are able to absorb those costs, how you are able to keep going? 
I know you mentioned the SVOG program as one of the ways to be 
helpful, and PPP. So can you paint a fuller picture for me, 
please?
    Ms. PRESLEY. I am happy to, Congressman Luetkemeyer. Thank 
you again for allowing me to speak.
    I would say that the uniqueness of a small business which 
there are millions, of course throughout our nation. Inflation 
is certainly going to impact in many ways as we look forward. 
While the PPP money and the Save Our Stages money was critical 
to keeping our employees on payroll this last year and to allow 
us to not borrow an enormous amount of money to keep open, 
uncertainty is the future.
    In terms of inflation, my really only two options are to 
pass costs along to our customers or to diminish my customer 
experience. And while I am getting notices from some vendors 
about their increases in price, I also know that I will simply 
open bills come May and June and find that things cost more. 
Those are very real for all of our small business owners. And 
to remind you as a small business owner, we do not have a deep 
financial backstop. We are it and we each sign agreements with 
our banks and our lenders to put our homes on the line and our 
assets on the line. We are happy to do that. We are happy to 
grow our businesses. But it is difficult. And with the 
uncertainty with COVID it is unknown. We need consumer 
confidence to rally. We need people to feel safe and want to 
travel and spend their money on entertainment when they have 
other needs as well.
    Mr. LUETKEMEYER. You know, there is a limit and as a small 
businessperson, you know, you can price some of those increase 
into your higher ticket prices but there is a price point in 
which your customer base is going to say no, we cannot afford 
this or no, we are not going to do this. Or they are going to 
cut back on the number of shows they go see. If you could 
elaborate. In Branson, you have an enormous number of shows and 
not only venues but a number of shows per day. And so a lot of 
people go there and they see multiple shows over 2 or 3 days. 
They are going to cut down on those number of shows if they 
raise price points. Have you looked at that, what the price 
point would be and how much it would affect not only yourself 
but your other venues there in Branson, how much of an increase 
they can sustain?
    Ms. PRESLEY. Well, Branson has been built on very family-
friendly, affordable entertainment. That is one of our 
hallmarks and we are proud of that. There are 37 theaters right 
now that host performances and that price point is frankly 
unknown. We will pass along some of the cost increases to our 
customers in increased ticket prices this next year. I wish I 
could say that I knew but I do know that human nature tells me 
that as we have seen at venues across the nation, people are 
going to not buy that extra t-shirt. They are maybe not going 
to have the merchandise to take home that they would have 
normally had. They may not buy as much concession stands or 
food and those are really vital things for our independent 
venues to help with the bottom line. I am hopeful that our 
customers will stay with us and realize that they want a 
quality product, and so far we have seen that to be the case 
but we are always looking for ways to make a family vacation 
affordable.
    Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you for that.
    Ms. Garrett, you made a comment that really kind of stuck 
with me and that was the ripple effect of the SVOG program's 
dollars. You were saying that to keep your entertainment venue 
going it is not only important to the venue and the workers 
themselves but to the rest of the businesses in the area. And 
so would you like to elaborate a little bit more on that? I 
think it is a very important point. Ms. Garrett?
    Ms. GARRETT. Yeah. Thank you very much for the question. 
OSF is in a rural area so we are a kind of interdependent 
ecology. Everything that we do affects everyone around us. And 
so when I said that we laid off 500 people and 5,000 people 
lost their jobs locally, you can imagine the impact. This is a 
place that people moved to with their families to work at OSF 
and other businesses around here. And with our tourism at a 
standstill, it was very difficult for people to keep their 
businesses open without OSF being open.
    Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you. I see my time has expired. 
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you, sir.
    And with that I now recognize Ms. Davids from Kansas, the 
Chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax, and Capital 
Access.
    Ms. DAVIDS. Thank you, Chairman. And thank you everybody 
for attending. And then for those who are offering testimony 
today, I appreciate your time to talk about this important 
topic as it relates to importance of the creative arts sector 
for our small business community.
    We are hearing about it, how hard the sector was hit and 
continues to be by this pandemic. And the artists and creative 
arts small businesses have had to work really hard to overcome 
some of the unique and particular challenges that are being 
faced. In Kansas, the arts sector makes up around 3 percent of 
our state's GDP and employs about 50,000 Kansans.
    I feel like I do have to mention I have spent some summers 
going down to Branson and Lake of the Ozarks, too, reciate 
seeing you on here today, Ms. Presley.
    But because of the importance to Kansas, I was really proud 
to be one of those folks to help create the Shuttered Venue 
Operators Grants program, providing directed relief to theaters 
and music venues and other performance venues.
    Kansas small businesses received around $99 million in SVOG 
grants last year, which really provided a lifeline to hundreds 
of small business. And I have continued to advocate for 
additional directed relief funds for these kinds of businesses. 
And as the most recent variant has shown us, we are not quite 
out of the pandemic yet.
    So in conversations with local organizations, nonprofits 
like the Arts Council of Johnson County, we know that they have 
been working to support creative partners throughout the 
community during the pandemic. And most recently I started 
focusing on small business education and helping artists 
understand some best practices. You know, business and legal 
practices.
    And so I wanted to ask Ms. Karas, do you think that the 
artistic community could benefit kind of more broadly from 
programs like this, business counseling and guidance especially 
for those small artist-led businesses?
    Ms. KARAS. Well, certainly the business owners can benefit 
from any kind of development that can be offered to them in 
terms of education, what is available out there for economic 
development, certain trends that people often do not see when 
they are running their own business. They might not see the 
trends that are going on around them.
    As to the ripple effect that, of course, it will have, it 
is on the individuals they hire, the workers. And so everybody 
will benefit from it to the extent that the education is out 
there. When government gets involved in looking at very 
carefully an assisting business, we all benefit. Not just the 
people who own the businesses but the people who work in them. 
And as I stated before, the ancillary businesses that benefit 
from all of the arts economy is sometimes immeasurable. We do 
not even sometimes stop and think about who might be creating a 
business around something just because there is an arts 
employer in the area.
    So, yes. The short answer is yes. I think business owners 
and business developers could benefit from all the education 
and development that could be available to them.
    Ms. DAVIDS. Thank you.
    Ms. Garrett, I was hoping to hear from you about, you know, 
we heard you talk about the kind of ripples and those economic 
shocks that we see, and particularly as it relates to in-person 
programming, I am curious about your view of how we can help 
small businesses in this sector stay resilient as we think 
about further pandemic and maybe other types of disruptions.
    Ms. GARRETT. So locally, I think it is important to make 
sure that the federal government keeps infusing resources back 
into these ecologies and communities. For mine in particular, I 
think just like every other industry we are going through this 
sort of great resignation. The more dollars that are lost 
within these industries that are interconnected, the more 
likely people are to leave to go to other industries that are 
more likely to be able to survive. And creative workers in 
particular are leaving in droves. And so they are leaving 
restaurants and they are leaving theaters and they are leaving 
their day job. They are leaving everything so that they can 
figure out a way to survive. So more infusion of resource would 
really be helpful. I thank you for the question.
    Ms. DAVIDS. Thank you. I see my time has expired.
    Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. The gentlelady yields back.
    And now I recognize the Vice Ranking Member of the 
Committee, Mr. Williams of Texas for 5 minutes.
    Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all 
of our witnesses. Like all of you, I am a small business owner 
in Texas. I have been for 51 years. And my father was a great 
singer in the stages around at the Casa Manana in Fort Worth, 
Texas. So I grew up seeing a lot of your industry.
    When I talk to business owners back in Texas, they are 
concerned about our supply chains, the out-of-control inflation 
and the constant threat of tax increases coming from the 
Democrats in Washington. Each one of these crises poses new 
challenges for small businesses and adds additional costs for 
them to keep their lights on. This leaves business owners with 
tough decisions in order to keep doing what they love. They may 
have to reduce capital investment. They may have to hold off on 
hiring new employees or pass the costs if they can along to 
consumers and raise prices as they are able to keep their doors 
open.
    So Ms. Presley, my question to you is, in your testimony 
you talked about how your business has struggled with the 
increase in the cost of goods due to inflation. We all have 
that problem. Can you discuss the adjustments your business 
will have to make to offset these cost increases? And 
furthermore, how do you think tax increases proposed by the 
Democrats could affect your business?
    Ms. PRESLEY. Well, thank you, Congress Williams. And thank 
you as well for your sponsorship of the Save Our Stages Act.
    As I said, we will open again in March, and I think some of 
the difficult decisions we will make, this is the time of year 
when we order the sequined jackets and costume and when we make 
upgrades to our stage. When we look at hiring new performers. 
Those are all decisions that I believe we will make a bit on a 
hope and a prayer to be honest. We are very much focused on 
what is in front of us. Not so much the unknown. We feel like 
with COVID and all of the issues that you and Congress must 
have on your plates, we respect that.
    One thing that would be helpful I wanted to mention while I 
had the opportunity is, you know, with the SBA, many of us 
received grants that helped our businesses. Those grants were a 
bit late in coming and we are hoping very much for an extension 
of time to spend that money. That could make a big difference 
for many of our venues. And so I wanted to put that before you 
as well. We are hopeful that COVID will abate. We see that 
happening in the East but not here yet. And we are very much 
hoping to be able to operate our businesses as we have done in 
the past and keep our costs in line so that folks can have a 
great time.
    Mr. WILLIAMS. Okay. I was the Republican lead as many of 
you said today, and I appreciate that on the Save Our Stages 
bill that ultimate turned into the Shuttered Venue Operators 
Grant Program, better known as SVOG. This was a necessary piece 
of legislation because it helped businesses that were some of 
the first to close and the last to open as a result of the 
pandemic. Unfortunately, the SBA took months to get this 
program up and running and many venues did not survive these 
delays. And I applaud businesses like yours, Ms. Presley, for 
being so resilient and able to hold off through this 
incompetency we saw at the SBA in order to access these funds. 
Now, throughout this process, I worked extensively with NIVA to 
communicate the horror stories that we were hearing from the 
industry as businesses failed to get answers from the SBA 
regarding the program.
    So another question to you, Ms. Presley, can you expand on 
your experience with the SBA and any issues you faced when 
attempting to receive the SVOG funds?
    Ms. PRESLEY. Well, we had not worked with the SBA in the 
past. I was thinking about all the things that we have gone 
through in 56 years. We have been through 9/11 and gas 
shortages and recessions so this one is a new one. But while 
our experience with the SBA was good, we did have that delay 
and that certainly made everyone tense and nervous. I will 
applaud NIVA and your efforts as well, Congressman, to continue 
to find ways. This was a new program, something unique, and we 
recognize that. So the dollars did not flow as fast as we 
wanted them to. But that said, I think there is a new 
opportunity to look at now. I know as Ms. Karas talked about, 
an opportunity for SBA to expand their outreach to business 
like mine. Many people want to grow their businesses. 
Entrepreneurs want to start new businesses. We are seldom happy 
with the status quo and I believe SBA could be a backstop for 
us. Could provide a lot of information and knowledge that an 
entrepreneur might not have. So I will say that I look forward 
to kind of renewed efforts.
    Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, easier, not harder would be what we 
want the SBA to understand.
    Lastly, businesses across the country are struggling to 
find and retain talented workers.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. Mr. Williams, your time has expired, sir. I 
am sorry.
    Mr. WILLIAMS. My time expired. I return to you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Mr. PHILLIPS. All right. Thank you, sir.
    And with that I recognize the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. 
Newman, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. NEWMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you, Ranking 
Member, for putting together this great testimony today. So let 
me start by thanking all of the witnesses on this call today. 
You have brought light and love to when we desperately needed 
it throughout our nation. I am a firm believer that the arts 
not only heal and help us get through hard times but also unite 
those that typically are not united. So thank you for your 
great work.
    I will also say a couple of other things. Having been an 
assistant producer and a copyrighter in my early career, I have 
very genuine feelings on this topic because those were hard 
times when I had no health care. I went without jobs for long 
periods of time. And it was just a constant struggle. So I 
clearly have the lived experience around it but also, you are 
living it right now in a much more challenging environment. So 
I that much more applaud your amazing work. I am also a former 
small business owner. So kind of a 360 on this topic. So I feel 
for everyone.
    I have a forward-looking set of questions. And I am going 
to go to Ms. Karas first. So being a Member of the Women Labor 
Caucus and being a product of unions and being a strong 
advocate for unions, there are just some very creative things 
that unions have done over time to support their workers in 
these times. We may have this issue again. I do not think we 
can deny that now.
    So Ms. Karas, what do you think we can do to support our 
unions to help our artists and creative community to be 
stronger? Are there some ideas you have in a forward-looking 
way that would help us anticipate further bad times at some 
point?
    Ms. KARAS. Thank you. I appreciate this question. I have 
been in unions for a long, long many years and every time I 
think about what unions do for the workers it all comes down to 
providing the security of a group that supports itself and 
supports one another. You know, we call each other sisters and 
brothers in our organizations and there is a kind of a family 
feeling. We depend on one another. My colleague, Mr. Elrod and 
I are in the same unions and he knows he can depend on me and I 
know I can depend on him when the going gets rough. That is 
what solidarity is all about. So that is part of what unions 
provide for people. But moreover, the job security while they 
are working to know that they are going to be taken care of, 
and employers, you know, it is no accident the biggest 
entertainment employers in this country and maybe in the world 
hire multiple numbers of unions to do every project they have. 
Why is that? Because they know what they are getting. And that 
is another kind of security that we all look at. We want to 
make sure that when we show up on the job we are going to be 
treated decently, we get good pension, health, and other job 
securities. And we also know that our employers appreciate that 
we are ready to show up and provide professional work in a 
disciplined manner. And looking forward, I think that some of 
the government, the COVID pandemic relief that our union 
received along with hundreds of thousands of other businesses 
was a lifeline to keep the doors open, to keep the lights on, 
and some semblance of staff even if you could not keep everyone 
to provide securities for the industry. We provided assistance 
to Members who could not pay rent, utilities, medical expenses, 
by donating to the Actors Fund, which is a charity, a national 
charity.
    Union workplaces also know that they provide better 
conditions for women and people of color than nonunion 
employers do. And the wages are higher, the benefits are 
better. And so when workers are looking for work, many of them 
want to go to unions because they know that they will have that 
security. And we are seeing that kind of interest arise among 
young people today throughout the country because they know if 
they ban together and tell their employer what they need, they 
are stronger together. So off the top of my head those are just 
some of the remarkable benefits of a union. And going forward, 
I think the stronger the union movement is, the more the 
workers will be there for the American economy.
    Ms. NEWMAN. Well, thank you for your comments. And yes, 
well heard. I, obviously, as some of the folks mentioned, am a 
strong proponent of the PATPA--because when we have stronger 
unions, we have a stronger middle class. So thank you. If I 
may----
    Ms. CHU. [Presiding] The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. NEWMAN. Okay. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you.
    Ms. CHU. And now, Mr. Fitzgerald, the gentleman from 
Wisconsin, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. FITZGERALD. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Karas, there has been some interest from some arts and 
culture organizations including in my home state of Wisconsin 
of temporarily removing the $300 cap on charitable giving 
deductions to allow more money to kind of flow into the 
nonprofit creative sector which seems like obviously an easy 
thing to do and a good thing to do. But you are here not only 
representing the Actors' Equity Association but also their 
foundation. Have you guys looked at this and do you know what 
the impact might be? This would be, I guess, considered support 
for the Performing Arts Tax Parity Act.
    Ms. KARAS. Yes, thank you very much, Congressman. You know, 
of course we have looked at all the tax changes that have come 
about in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the recent adjustments 
that have been made to the code and the above-the-line 
deduction for charitable contributions has certainly been a 
boon to the charities who many of which thought that they, and 
did actually, lose contributions because of the less use of the 
itemized deduction schedule. The reduced use I should say. So 
yes, I think any contributions to nonprofits are always going 
to be welcomed. Is it going to have a huge effect on someone's 
tax liability? Possibly not at the rate of 300. But if it was 
unlimited you would see the nonprofit world be much more 
supported by the contributors because they would have an 
incentive to do it now if they are not using the itemized 
deduction schedule. So it is a definite yes. We certainly 
approve of it. And while it does not have a direct effect on 
the Performing Artist Tax Parity Act, that, too, will support 
businesses and employers as workers are able to stay in the 
industry, feel confident in the industry because they have 
equalized their incomes with other taxpayers who earn the same 
amount of money.
    Mr. FITZGERALD. Very good. Thank you for that answer.
    Let me turn to Ms. Garrett. Ms. Garrett, kind of a trickier 
question, something that obviously many entities are dealing 
with but I know the Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced that 
proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID test will be 
required to attend performances in 2022. We are kind of already 
seeing the effects of this requirement. But how much of an 
impact do you believe this will have on ticket and concession 
sales and particularly I guess as we get closer to spring and 
into the summer months?
    Ms. GARRETT. So thank you very much for the question. OSF 
has had for years had a very loyal patron base that comes back 
year over year, over year, over year. And they love the 
company. They love the artists that work here and would do 
anything to make sure that those artists are saved. So what we 
have experienced in these last few months of producing plays is 
a real robust participation in making sure that you are 
vaccinated and you have your card and that you have your proof 
of the test and, you know, that your child has a proof of the 
test and everybody is willing to go in in masks. We were kind 
of surprised at how compliant our patron base is. And again, 
that is because we have families. We have legacy families that 
have been coming here for 30 years, 40 years. Grandparents 
bringing grandchildren. And so there is a real desire to make 
sure that everybody is safe. So it will not affect our bottom 
line I do not believe because of the desire for people to be 
safe. And we have had patrons say as they are standing in line 
with their cards and everything, you know, thank you for doing 
it this way. We want to be able to be safe, too, as we walk 
into these spaces.
    Mr. FITZGERALD. Yeah, I think the sands are shifting 
quickly on those issues and I think we will see how that plays 
out.
    Thank you for being here today, and I yield back, Madam 
Chair.
    Ms. CHU. The gentleman yields back.
    And now Ms. Bourdeaux from Georgia, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. BOURDEAUX. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman.
    The creative economy is a very vital part of our nation's 
economy and enriches our communities through all sorts of 
cultural contributions. I know after being deprived during 
COVID for a while, just sitting and hearing people sing in 
person just was such a wonderful, spiritual lifting up. So I 
personally experienced how great it is to get back to the arts.
    In my district, arts-related businesses employ an estimated 
10,000 people and venues in Georgia's 7th District received 
some of the much-needed relief in the form of over $2 million 
through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program. But 
clearly more work needs to be done.
    The SVOG provided this important boost, but one of the 
things we are starting to think about more now is what are we 
going to do if we keep getting hit by these COVID variants over 
and over, and over again going forward? And how do we need to 
be thinking about how we support the arts industry? How do we 
support industries like this over time if that is going to be 
the scenario?
    So I guess starting with Mr. Elrod, maybe if you could talk 
a little about this and what is going on in the industry as 
they are thinking about this. Obviously, theater is about being 
in person and that is challenging. What do you think the 
creative industry is going to need both to recover from the 
pandemic but also to really prepare for the long-term if this 
does, in fact, become something where we are going to have to 
deal with it for another couple years?
    Mr. ELROD. Well, thank you very much for the question. I 
think one of the things that is interesting is that with COVID-
19, especially with Omicron, we are in a situation where we 
have been hit by a tsunami. The tidal wave is in and it has not 
gone out. So we do not actually know the negative impact on the 
entire creative economy right now. And one of the closest 
things we had is that Brookings Institution's report from last 
summer, Lost art: Measuring COVID-19's devastating impact on 
the creative economy, which measured losses just between April 
and June of 2020. And we were talking about $150 billion in 
lost sales and 2.7 million unemployed arts workers. So if you 
extrapolate that out and just keep multiplying over and over 
and over again, you really do think about it in terms of that 
star analogy that I used in my opening speech. We are in a 
situation where there are possibly, probably many black holes 
all over the country with lost art, lost institutions, closed 
venues, and arts workers themselves. Ms. Garrett talked about 
the workforce leaving and doing other things. And when you 
think about who we are, what we do, and what we provide, you 
want these 5.2 million workers doing what we do. You want all 
673,000 businesses to survive this because they do anchor local 
dynamic economies. So what there is to do about it is 
absolutely all the interventions that everybody else has been 
talking about. But what I was proposing in my opening testimony 
is a kind of creative economy super package. If you take every 
piece of arts investment legislation that has been introduced 
in the last couple of years, put them together, really make 
sure there is robust unemployment, you can put together 
basically a floor underneath the entire industry, especially 
our arts workers and get us to launch into this next phase. But 
because there is so much unknown and the wave is still in, that 
is why I was recommending maybe a GAO report or a congressional 
commission because I think with a $919 billion industry that 
has suffered this much damage and continues to suffer this much 
damage, we have to take a really deep granular look at what is 
happening, what has happened, and what needs to happen for us 
to come back.
    Ms. BOURDEAUX. Thank you. I am going to run out of time but 
I want to just wrap up with this idea. So, for instance, we 
have introduced legislation. It is called the Fresh Air Act for 
Business, which is to improve ventilation in businesses. And 
the idea is we need to restructure for the long haul as opposed 
to just give short shots of funding in order to just make it 
through the crisis. And so I just want to encourage everybody 
to start thinking about this. We do not know for sure that that 
is what is going to end up happening but I think we need to 
start planning for that and start thinking about what is the 
congressional response if, in fact, this is going to be 
something that we need to plan for the long haul.
    Thank you so much. I yield back.
    Ms. CHU. The gentlelady yields back.
    And now the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Van Duyne, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you very much, Chairwoman and Ranking 
Member Luetkemeyer for holding this hearing.
    Early in the pandemic, the effect on the creative economy 
was apparent. Shows were halted, venues were shuttered due to 
unclear CDC guidance. State and local restrictions were 
constantly shifting, making it very hard for small businesses 
to reopen and stay open. After a long wait, consumers in many 
states, such as Texas where I represent, are now returning to 
their pre-pandemic lives. There is no doubt that one of the 
keys to a thriving creative economy is an open society. States 
and localities across the country should follow Texas's model.
    Unfortunately, those eager to return are now faced with new 
economic challenges. Everywhere you turn, from the gas pump to 
the grocery store, prices are rising the fastest in 4 decades, 
and that is if you can even avoid empty shelves.
    The Democrats' response continues to be throwing more money 
at the problem but at what point do we ask what we are getting 
for that money? We spent taxpayer dollars paying people to stay 
home from work for much of the pandemic, but it is still 
hurting employers. And just last week we had the SBA's OIG 
unable to tell us what happens to the billions of dollars of 
fraudulent money that is clawed back from SBA's COVID relief 
programs, money that could be highly beneficial to the very 
businesses that we are discussing today.
    The creative sector is part of the small business economy 
and all small businesses are in desperate need of solutions to 
inflation, supply chain struggles, and employment shortages. 
What we do not need is another frivolous, multi-trillion dollar 
spending package while we are chasing down at least $100 
billion in fraud. The fact is, billions of federal dollars 
remain unspent and state governments have so much access to 
stimulus money that they are now paying off deficits that were 
created by their failure to keep a balanced budget instead of 
going toward the pandemic.
    I am interested, Mr. Elrod, your business is in New York 
City. During the pandemic, state and local governments diverted 
in how they handled restrictions in their respective 
communities. In each of your communities, well, specifically in 
New York, how did your state and local restrictions and 
regulations affect your business and ability to operate?
    Mr. ELROD. Well, in New York City, I was sitting with a 
friend of mine. I was on my way to see a Broadway show on March 
11th when we were sitting in a midtown bar and our governor 
came on and announced that Broadway was closing. And not far 
after that, off-Broadway. And then pretty much the curtain came 
down and the lights went out all across New York City. And a 
lot of people in retrospect feel that March 11th was too late 
and that the response was too slow and that the virus had 
already taken hold in New York City, obviously, a very dense 
metropolitan area. As an L train rider, I can tell you we were 
all in a lot of danger. And so I believe that what happened was 
appropriate and prophylactic against----
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. So then you are agreeing that shutting down 
was the appropriate response. And I also need to ask, did you 
understand that New York City, or New York has received over 
$272 billion in COVID relief? I am wondering how much of that 
$272 billion has been received by the State of New York. Do you 
feel like that was appropriately spent on the arts?
    Mr. ELROD. Well, part of the efforts I was with earlier in 
the year, as Be An #Arts Hero we were deciding do we go to the 
state and see if we can get American Rescue Plan funds or do we 
continue talking to the federal government? And the answer has 
to be both. Because what we are really doing here with Be An 
#Arts Hero is we are calling it CELP, the Creative Economy 
Literacy Project. And what we are trying to do is talk to 
people like you in state and local government and say, hey, we 
are in a profound amount of trouble. And if you really want to 
build back in an incredible way, we are the way to do it. But 
you need to stabilize us, put a floor underneath us, and then 
you can harness us as a backbone of a great recovery. So in my 
opinion, there is never going to be enough money spent on the 
creative economy until everybody understands just what a 
phenomenon we are and what an incredible resource is available 
to policymakers if they would like to take advantage of us. And 
that is why I have proposed this kind of super package to 
stabilize us and allow us to, you know, help us to help you 
build back on the other side of this. After the plague came the 
Renaissance. After the 1918 Flu came the Roaring Twenties. 
There is going to be a huge appetite for what we have to offer 
so we need to be around to offer it and we will jumpstart this.
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you. My time is done. I yield back. 
Thank you.
    Mr. ELROD. Thank you.
    Ms. CHU. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    And now I recognize myself for 5 minutes.
    First, I want to thank Chairwoman Velazquez for calling 
this important hearing which I was truly looking forward to as 
a representative of the Los Angeles area, which is the center 
of film, television, and music. It is hard to overstate the 
impact that the pandemic has had on the creative economy. To 
support a strong, durable recovery for those industries that 
employ over 5 million workers nationwide, we need to ensure 
that creative professionals are fairly compensated for their 
work. And that includes musical artists, like Members of the 
Recording Academy who must be fairly compensated, as well as 
our actors of film and television.
    That is why I am proud to have founded and relaunched the 
bipartisan Creative Rights Caucus with my Co-Chair, 
Representative Drew Ferguson of Georgia. This caucus will 
continue to work to protect the rights of content creators and 
I look forward to working with you to further this goal.
    I also ask for unanimous consent submit for the record 
testimony from the Screen Actors Guild and the American 
Federation of TV and Radio Arts (SAG-AFTRA), which represents 
160,000 hardworking professionals in the entertainment 
industry. And as Chair I say, so ordered.
    So now for my question. Ms. Karas and Mr. Elrod, I am proud 
to have introduced H.R. 4750, the Performing Artists Tax Parity 
Act of 2021. This legislation would modernize the qualified 
performing artist tax deduction to ensure that more creative 
workers can seek employment without facing steep personal 
expenses.
    Now, I am proud to have pushed for relief for performers. 
For instance, for the Gig Worker Pandemic Unemployment benefit 
and for the Mixed Income Unemployment subsidy which were 
successfully included in our legislation to relieve us on the 
pandemic. And I am also proud that this Committee supported 
theaters and venues through the Shuttered Venue Operators 
Grant.
    But we must do so much more to support the actors, 
musicians, and artists who make performances so incredibly 
special. The Qualified Performing Artist tax deduction has not 
been updated in decades and currently does not meet the needs 
of performers.
    So Ms. Karas, can you talk more about the purpose of this 
tax deduction and why we need legislation to modernize it for 
today's economy?
    And Mr. Elrod, I have heard from so many performers who 
have to pay for extra expenses, like photo and makeup and still 
not get the job necessarily. Can you tell us your stories about 
the expenses that performers have to face?
    Ms. Karas?
    Ms. KARAS. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Chu. You 
know, we also thank you for your introduction of this bill, 
H.R. 4750 and the support that we have gotten so far.
    PATPA is a correction to an unintended consequences of what 
happens when a bill is created by a president, in this case 
Ronald Reagan, recognizing the value of entertainment workers 
in the code and the provision itself was not indexed for 
inflation. Congress saw fit to leave it in the code with the 
last Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax bill and we were grateful for 
that but we realized that the modernization is long overdue. 
What this bill dies is it levels the playing field by 
equalizing the income that people who work in the performing 
arts have against people who do not work in the performing 
arts.
    I will just give you a little example. You and I are both 
single and I am in the performing arts and you work in an 
office. And we both earn $80,000. But I am spending about 25 
percent of my gross income to pay my agent, my manager, to look 
for work, transportation, continuing education and classes, 
some equipment, and especially during the pandemic, we have all 
had to buy----
    Ms. CHU. Ms. Karas, I would like to give time for Mr. Elrod 
also to say something.
    Mr. ELROD. Thank you very much. I would simply join Ms. 
Karas in everything that she was saying. And just on a personal 
anecdotal note, of course the challenges of the pandemic have 
increased personal costs even while we suffered 15 months and 
more of total unemployment, we are expected to have the highest 
quality Internet, the highest quality computers and cameras and 
microphones. And for the little work that we are able to do 
during this time, we are still paying 10 percent agent 
commissions. So there are lots and lots of out-of-pocket 
expenses that performing artists have to take on. And they have 
actually increased during one of the hardest moments for us. 
And so something like the passage of the bill that you have 
introduced would help us out a lot. And thank you for 
introducing it.
    Ms. CHU. Thank you so much. My time has expired.
    And now the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Meuser is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. MEUSER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I thank our 
Ranking Member very much, Mr. Luetkemeyer, for bringing us all 
together. Very interesting subject. Thank you for all being 
here.
    So I want to just talk a little bit initially about the 
general business concerns that your industry has and you as 
proprietors and entrepreneurs and stakeholders. You know, 
obviously education to create your best workers, your staff, 
your talent, education these days is unbelievably high, very 
expensive both public and private. So skills development must 
be a challenge. Taxes, certain in New York and other cities are 
crazy. And the idea of increased tax on small businesses does 
not in my view help at all. Keeping your employees happy, 
healthy, but as well, safe. You know, because I want to ask 
about that a little bit, how public safety weighs in here. 
Access to capital, very important. Your cash flow. You have all 
been talking about that. Technology I made a note of but that 
is something a little bit different. Capital investment was 
mentioned about the ventilators just came up briefly. What sort 
of additional capital investments were made to handle COVID and 
just matters moving forward. I think people are just generally 
more health conscious. And your product, of course, creating 
that. And your customers.
    Now, I understand, see, you folks were shut down, or 
Broadway. I am relating this somewhat to Broadway. I cannot 
speak for Branson. Shut down for about 18 months, I believe. 
Now, Japan was shut down for 6 months, UK was shut down for 12, 
and yet even with that build up, you are getting about 66 
percent of capacity now. And Japan was very big on the whole 
ventilator plan. UK to an extent. They were trying to catch up 
afterwards. I am not so sure what was being done on Broadway 
and Branson and L.A. and other places.
    But the thing is this, look, probably everybody on here has 
seen The Phantom, seen Hamilton, seen Wicket and Jersey Boys 
and love the theater. So we are very much advocates and 
proponents of doing what it takes to help bring this extremely 
important industry back. I mean, I have a daughter that lives 
in Manhattan and all that is very important.
    So the thing is, I want to ask, what would you like to see? 
Besides additional PPP or even if that is necessary, or the 
Shuttered Venue program, what would you do differently? I mean, 
Monday morning quarterback is easy. What would you do? What is 
your plan moving forward? Where can we be of assistance? 
Because it is also notable that, for instance, the NHL, indoor, 
larger arena, understand, but they have had a record year. And 
yet, our entertainment industry is struggling big time.
    So I will ask Ms. Presley. I know you are Branson, and Mr. 
Elrod, I would like to ask you, what have we learned and what 
should we do moving forward that will be favorable to you all 
and to your business?
    Ms. PRESLEY. Well, thank you, Congressman. I appreciate the 
question. It is a difficult choice. There is no way around 
that. I think consumer confidence is really where we are 
focused as an association with NIVA. As we have talked about, 
my business is here. We are looking out for our guests and our 
customers and our employees. We are encouraging masks and we 
are encouraging vaccination but that is where we are here in 
Missouri. For other venues across the nation there are 
multiple, multiple, rather different views of this. And of 
course, going forward with COVID it is very hard to know.
    Mr. MEUSER. And Ms. Presley, I am sorry. I probably had too 
long of an opening.
    Mr. Elrod, could you speak upon New York?
    Mr. ELROD. Thank you very much. I think the short answer is 
would it not be great to have a secretary of Arts and Culture? 
You know, when we have agriculture and it is in trouble, there 
is a secretary of Agriculture to say, ``Okay, this is what 
needs to be done. Let's take a deep dive analysis.'' If we had 
a secretary of the Creative Economy or Arts and Culture, 
somebody at the executive level on the Domestic Policy Council 
who could say, ``All right, look at this $919 billion industry 
and this 5.2 million person workforce, look at the jeopardy 
they are in. Let's develop together the guidance of what to 
do.'' Right off the top of my head, obviously continuing robust 
unemployment for the nation's arts workers would be fantastic.
    Mr. MEUSER. Thank you, Mr. Elrod.
    I am running out of time. I will make that recommendation 
to our governor of Pennsylvania. And I do believe in the Film 
Tax Credit and your industry. So thank you very much.
    I am sorry, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. CHU. The gentleman's time has expired.
    And now the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Kim, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. KIM. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I would like to start, Madam Chair, by just asking 
unanimous consent to enter a letter from Our Pride New Jersey 
into the record.
    Ms. CHU. So ordered.
    Mr. KIM. Thank you.
    Our Pride New Jersey is based in Burlington. It is in my 
district. And pre-COVID, there were over 19,000 arts-related 
businesses in New Jersey that employed more than 80,000 people. 
In our state, every art and cultural patron spends over $33 in 
local economies each time they purchase a ticket for a cultural 
event. And that translates into over $662 million each year in 
economic impact when cultural venues are fully in operation. So 
the creative sector clearly is having a real impact in terms of 
creating jobs and economic activity.
    But I also want to focus on another element here, which is 
that it has an impact on our kids. And they have been through 
an awful lot over the last couple years.
    Back in April I met with the Burlington County Regional 
Chamber of Commerce. And they connected me with an organization 
called Morristown Theater Company in my district. As a 
nonprofit arts organization without their own building, they 
were not sure if they were eligible for the Shuttered Venue 
Operators Grant. They had to get extra creative during the 
pandemic, even producing shows out of a parking lot. My office 
was able to work with them to confirm that they were eligible 
and encourage them to apply. They ended up getting a $200,000 
grant. They also utilized the EIDL, the PPP, employee retention 
credits, and assistance form the New Jersey Economic 
Development Authority. They report that this grant, along with 
others, allowed them to keep their doors open and to keep their 
work going forward.
    Just yesterday, I checked in and they were starting 
rehearsal for an upcoming production of The Little Mermaid 
which they are working on with a lot of little kids in the 
community. And the kids are incredibly excited that we are 
doing this hearing today and shining a light on the arts and 
about how it impacts them.
    I want these kids and kids all over the country to know 
that we are listening to them. That we understand that this is 
not just about business. It is about our development and it is 
about our education to our kids as well.
    So I just wanted to throw this out there. You know, Ms. 
Garrett, I know your organization works with professional 
artists. But if you are any of the other witnesses would like 
to speak to the importance of the arts for our children, what 
they have missed during this pandemic, and the benefit of 
investing in the arts, experiencing the arts education for our 
children and our families, and what it is that we could try to 
do to just try to make up for this lost time in terms of being 
able to give your kids that opportunity to experience arts but 
also to be able to participate in it.
    So I just kind of wanted to open it up if anyone wanted.
    Ms. Garrett, if you wanted to start off.
    Ms. GARRETT. I thank you for the question. You know, 
numerous studies have shown repeatedly that arts education 
increases student engagement, helps them learn positive habits 
and attitudes and creativity and creative problem solving and 
teaches critical intellectual skills and observation and helps 
them learn languages and mathematics and helps them practice 
teamwork and all of that. OSF has been a leader in arts 
education for more than 50 years. And like I said during my 
opening statement, you know, we have 2,300 education and 
engagement programs that were completely shut down but served 
communities across the region. We have students that come in 
from all over the West Coast to watch our plays, to learn 
something from our artists, to engage in activities around 
creative art making. And the loss of that is twofold. The first 
is that you lose access to all of those wonderful things that 
we all get, we all benefit form when we learn in arts education 
programs.
    But you also lose that pipeline. I started in arts 
education programming. Most of us who are arts workers did. We 
started there. We learned about a craft and we continued to 
focus on it until we mastered it. And so without introducing 
children, you do not have enough people on the other end who 
are really interested and engaged.
    And here is the thing. Most of us in the arts creative 
economy, we have transmittable skills. Carpenters can work in 
construction. I run a multi-million dollar, multi-lateral 
business. I can be a CL of a different kind of company. You 
know, you have to sort of thing about it like that, that we 
give our skill set to this industry so that everybody can 
benefit from it.
    Mr. KIM. I think what you raise there about the pipeline. 
What you raise there about the pipeline is great. And the last 
thing I will just say and I will close is that, you know, I 
also felt like with my own kids, I have a 4-year-old and a 6-
year-old, that getting them to engage back in arts has been a 
way to socialize them back into society after, you know, 
specially half my 4-year-old's life has been in a pandemic. And 
getting him to go and sing and dance and other things like that 
has been so rewarding.
    So thank you for what you do. And Madam Chair, I turn it 
back to you.
    Ms. CHU. The gentleman's time has expired.
    And now the gentlelady from California, Ms. Young Kim, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. YOUNG KIM. Thank you, Chairwoman, and Ranking Member 
Luetkemeyer, for holding this hearing.
    I want to thank all our panelists for your time and 
engaging in our conversation with us.
    First, Ms. Presley, in your testimony you indicated that 
your business is struggling with the increased cost of goods 
because of inflation. So can you look at your list of expenses 
and tell me which are the biggest price increases that you have 
noticed in the last 6 months. And as you know, I say this 
because these price increases, the inflation, it is expected to 
persist until well into the middle of next year. So I wanted to 
hear your thoughts and elaborate how this is going to affect 
your business and your planning.
    Ms. PRESLEY. Thank you, Congresswoman, first.
    I wish I could say that I exactly know. We are dark right 
now and we will open again in March. But I certainly see 
increases coming and shortages as well of the type of 
merchandise that we sell. I see that in terms of our concession 
supplies. We saw that last fall. Not only just price increases 
but we saw inability to secure cups and different things that 
we need for our business. We know that is real. It is unknown 
yet in terms of insurance costs but we anticipate that that may 
happen as well. It is not any one thing I would say. It is just 
cumulative and when you run a small business like our 
independent venues do, it is the cumulative things that 
actually are most difficult to manage.
    Ms. YOUNG KIM. Sure. Well, thanks for your answer. I asked 
that because if the businesses have to plan and deal with 
inflation well into next year and beyond, it is clear that the 
problem is not transitory and we have to deal with it; right? 
So I just wanted to ask that.
    But I also want to ask a question to you, Ms. Presley. I 
was intrigued by the statistic that you quote that for every 
dollar spent at a small music venue, $12 of economic activity 
was generated for area businesses. Can you elaborate on that 
study and share with us your unique experience with the local 
economic ripple effect of Presley's Theater in Bronson?
    Ms. PRESLEY. Well, thank you. Yes, I mean, I suspect if you 
think back about the last time you took a vacation, you very 
seldom go to do one thing and then leave. So we are cognizant 
that when our visitors come to Branson, it is usually a visitor 
party of about 3-1/2 people and they spend over $1,100 inside 
our community to do things. They buy gas. They eat at the local 
restaurant. They for certain go shopping. They are likely to 
see more things. People tend to see over three shows when they 
come to Branson, Missouri. So I see this with all of our 
independent venues and small businesses, whether you be rural 
or urban. You go downtown Chicago, you are going to see 
something fun at a music venue but you are going to stop before 
and after. Maybe you are going to have a drink. You took an 
uber to get to your destination. I think that it is easy to see 
how we are able to multiply the $1 into economic numbers that 
enhance our entire community. Keeps people employed.
    Ms. YOUNG KIM. Thank you for your answer. You know, like 
Ms. Judy Chu, I represent the State of California where we have 
Hollywood and movies and entertainment is really the key, one 
of the key industries in our state and we welcome everybody and 
we can really expand on that dollar spent and generate that 
economic activity that we talked about in Missouri.
    The next question I would like to ask is to Ms. Garrett. An 
ongoing theme that we have explored in this Committee is the 
supply chain crisis. Businesses, especially the small 
businesses, are unable to source goods necessary to create 
their products or deliver goods to anxious customers because of 
the supply chain crisis. And I realize that your businesses, 
live entertainment is not a good space business. But have you 
seen any impact in this regard in the live entertainment realm?
    Ms. GARRETT. Oh, yes. Thank you very much for the question.
    So because of the surge and consumer demand and COVID 
warehouse closures, we had a whole myriad issues trying to open 
up our shows last year and we know we are going to move into 
the same problems this year. Cardboard, lumber, containers, 
trucks, workers, paint. We canceled early performances because 
of supply chain issues for our winter show. And people went on 
stage with paint still being wet. The lumber did not arrive in 
time. It was still sitting out on the water. The molding 
company had a COVID issue so they were not able to get things 
through the supply chain. And this is going to be ongoing. And 
after nearly 2 years of expenses with no audience revenues, the 
performing arts will find themselves facing outsized restart 
costs.
    Ms. CHU. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    And now the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Evans, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Karas, I hope I get your name right, you submitted 
testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee regarding your 
views on the Qualified Performance Arts Tax deduction, a 
portion of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Would you mind 
elaborating on the effect that this tax increase has had on 
working middle-class artists?
    Ms. KARAS. I appreciate your question, Mr. Congressman.
    The very short answer is it has been discouraging. A lot of 
our performing arts colleagues have decided to leave the 
business because they can no longer sustain the out-of-pocket 
costs to remain viable. So they have taken other jobs. They 
have gone into other work. And it has been unfortunate that 
they have had to leave the industry. Those who have stayed have 
struggled because as I was saying before, to have to spend your 
out-of-pocket money, a write-off of your gross income and then 
be taxed equally the way someone else with the same wages you 
have is you are starting behind already. So, for example, if I 
spend 25 percent of my gross income on my out-of-pocket show 
business expenses just to stay viable and another taxpayer with 
the same wages does not have it, we are taxed the same but I 
have fewer dollars to spend on my home, my rent, my utilities, 
my medical care. If I have a family, on any of those costs. It 
is very discouraging. So we are hoping that the Performing 
Artists Tax Parity Act will get passed with all due speed to 
put us on a level playing field with taxpayers who have the 
same income but do not have to spend the same amount of money 
to stay in their jobs. This is vital.
    And you know, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act really stressed tax 
relief for working middle-class taxpayers. So this is all we 
are asking is to be on a level playing field, to pay our fair 
share of tax, no more, but certainly no less.
    Mr. EVANS. I would like to ask you a follow-up question. 
One of our largest exports is entertainment. Can you talk about 
how important it is, both for America and for the rest of the 
world, that we support the creative economy for this reason?
    Ms. KARAS. Thank you. Yes. It is rather astounding, the 
export of entertainment around the world. Those of us who are 
in the United States take it for granted that we can just have 
all of this content at our fingertips. A lot of it is recorded. 
Much of it is live. Some of the live has been streamed over the 
pandemic. But when you think of the amount, the billions and 
billions of dollars that is sold internationally, it is 
astounding. Code Section 181 to help the employers, the 
production costs, the tax subsidies, you know, we would hope 
that the cap would be raised on that at some point to help 
those employers because the more help they have, the more 
production they generate.
    Well, as I said before, 4.3 percent of the GDP is the 
entertainment sector. That is astounding. Most people do not 
even think about it because it is ephemeral. There is no 
durable goods there. So we are thankful for the support and we 
hope for all of it from this Committee as well for the PATPA so 
that we can enjoy the same level of spending if our tax burdens 
are equalized with those who do not have the burdens that we 
do.
    Mr. EVANS. Very quickly I would like to follow up with Mr. 
Elrod on that same question and his response to it.
    Mr. Elrod on that question?
    Mr. ELROD. I think what is important is obviously there is 
the socioeconomic or the economic impact of the export but 
there is also the identity of America and the idea of American 
soft power throughout the world. As people consume our content, 
our movies, as they visit our cities, 68 percent of all tourism 
is for arts and cultural activities. When people come here from 
around the world and they take part in our creative economy, it 
gives them a sense of pride and wonder and awe about the power 
and strength of America inside their collective imaginations. 
And then they take that back throughout the world.
    Ms. CHU. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. CHU. Thank you.
    And now I recognize the gentlelady from New York, Ms. 
Tenney, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. TENNEY. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member 
Luetkemeyer. And thanks for holding this hearing. And we 
appreciate the insight and time of the witnesses as well. And I 
am honored to represent Upstate New York, which has a strong 
history and culture relating to the arts. I also always wanted 
to be an artist, but here I am, a politician now. We need a 
very strong ecosystem of manufacturers, designers, venues that 
serve artists and musicians in our greater community, including 
many historic sites. A lot of people do not realize that my 
hometown of Utica is where Dick Clark went to school and got 
his start. Annette Funicello of Mouseketeer fame. Joe 
Bonamassa, the great musician, Sawyer Fredericks, and so many 
others have come from our small city, our region, who have done 
an amazing job.
    But another thing is on the manufacturing sector, a lot of 
people do not realize that the golden artist colors you see 
when anyone who is an artist knows what they are, were actually 
started in my district in New Berlin--we say New Berlin, not 
New Berlin--New York. And I have provided a wide arrange of 
oil, acrylic, watercolor paints for earnest for many years. We 
also have a lot of printing companies, including my own, but 
another one I would like to mention is Curcio Printing in 
Vestal, New York, where there is a lot of graphic design. And 
people do not realize I owned a newspaper, but there is a lot 
of artistic venues with newspapers, designing ads designing 
creative production items for customers. And we did a lot of 
that.
    My concern is that in so much of this, and what has 
happened in my community with these great venues and great 
artists, is during the pandemic these industries have suffered. 
If they had not been designated essential, they were forced to 
shut down, forced to lose. And thankfully for the PPP program 
we were able to get some back. But a lot of these lockdowns are 
continuing. And even in an unscientific way which is really put 
I think a real problem with especially a lot of our event 
spaces which we have many people who come to perform in our 
region. And it concerns me that if we continue with these 
lockdowns, we are not going to get the reopening and the need 
for even performing artists, musicians, and others to be able 
to get back on stage and we will have to rely on remote 
learning. And as we know, there is nothing like being there in 
person.
    So I first wanted to ask Mr. Elrod, since you were very 
passionate about this, I had heard from a lot of these event 
space owners about the shutdowns or inability to have 
consistency and what the rules are and how to enforce those and 
guidance as how to deal with this.
    From your experience in theater and performance space, do 
you think that this sort of continuation of this arbitrary 
decision-making and, you know, this process is helping the 
creative economy. How would you make a uninformed standard so 
that everywhere that our artists perform, whether they are in 
my community or in New York, they know what is predictable and 
how to invest so they do not waste money on resources. I am 
trying to protect themselves and their audiences.
    Mr. ELROD. That is a really good question. And thanks for 
all that prelude. My first professional job was at the Hangar 
Theater in Ithaca, New York, so I am familiar with upstate and 
it is close and dear to me.
    You know, just anecdotally from my point of view and my 
experience is at the beginning the shutdowns were intended to 
keep people safe from the transmission of COVID-19 and those 
government lockdowns did lead to this 15 to 18 month in forced 
unemployment for so many arts workers. And again, when we talk 
about FPUC, et cetera, it was not that arts workers were lazy 
and did not want to go to work. We could not. So those were the 
first rounds of shutdowns.
    Now, the shutdowns that I am experiencing, or at least the 
ones that I am seeing now, are not necessarily happening 
because of arbitrary government imposition but because the 
workforce are getting sick. So like in my neighborhood of 
Bushwick, Brooklyn, I follow everybody on Instagram and I was 
going to go see a rock and roll concert on New Year's Eve. 
Well, most of the staff of the venue got sick. They shut the 
venue down. And there are a lot of really cool rock and roll 
clubs, et cetera, that I would love to see. And they are all 
just closed because----
    Ms. TENNEY. Okay. Can I reclaim my time? I just want to say 
it is great, okay, so your position is the shutdowns.
    I want to just ask Ms. Presley if you could weigh in on 
that. You know, on inflation or the supply chain. 
Representative Kim got into that a little bit with you. Can you 
just kind of elaborate? Is it just people are sick or is it 
inflation and supply chain that is affecting your industry? You 
have got 10 seconds.
    Ms. PRESLEY. I have to say it is both. We certainly have 
seen increased illness here this last month but we are hopeful 
in the next month that we will see some of that wane. But 
consumer confidence is still the driver and whether or not our 
visitors feel safe both from the virus and to travel.
    Ms. TENNEY. Thank you.
    Ms. CHU. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    And now the gentlelady form Pennsylvania, Ms. Houlahan, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. HOULAHAN. Hi, thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you so 
much for the panelists and their testimony today. This topic is 
very, very personal to me because my daughter is, indeed, a 
director of theater. A professional director of theater. In 
fact, she worked out at OSF when Bill Roush was there and Jacob 
Padron is one of her mentors. And so hello out there to OSF.
    The creative economy plays a really large role in my 
community, too, with 296 small businesses involved in the arts, 
entertainment, recreation within Pennsylvania's 6th 
Congressional District, which is just outside of Philadelphia. 
And many people have mentioned the Shuttered Venue Operators 
Grant program having been a lifeline during this time. With 
that said, especially with Omicron, I know that many business 
workers in the creative economy are still especially vulnerable 
during this public health crisis.
    As Congress is trying to understand the needs for 
additional COVID relief, I think we need to be smart about 
improving these programs and learning from the challenges that 
we have experienced in the programs we have rolled out.
    With that said, I have heard from employers in my 
community, like Science Explorers, which is an organization in 
my district which has applied for the Paycheck Protection 
Program grant and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant. The 
business reached out to my office to express their frustration 
because the SVOG process was very complex and they found it to 
be very time consuming and burdensome.
    So my first question is to Ms. Nataki Garrett. I understand 
that similar to Science Explorers at the Oregon Shakespeare 
Festival also applied for both PPP and SVOG grants. Can you 
please describe your experiences with the Paycheck Protection 
Program application compared to the Shuttered Venue Operators 
Grant program. Particularly, I am wondering if there are ways 
where we could be improving the SVOG program to be streamlined 
and approved.
    Ms. GARRETT. Thank you for the question. Just to be honest 
with you, I think the biggest problem was that there was not 
enough information. And so our banks did not have enough 
information and so they could not pass on enough information to 
us. And then the other thing was the information from the SBA 
kept shifting. And so we thought we would have something under 
control and then we were given something else. And then we had 
to submit this paper and get this thing done.
    We had a little bit of leeway because we had received some 
CARES Act funding as well through the state. And so we had a 
little bit of a buffer but a lot of my colleagues really 
suffered in that time waiting for information to be clarified. 
It was different from state to state and it was different 
actually from bank to bank. And so I think streamlining the 
process would be really beneficial. And especially if Congress 
were to be willing to release the $2 billion additional funds 
that are left over from the SVOG back into circulation to 
streamline a process so that we could have access to that 
money, now that we have already gone through a process it would 
be really, really helpful.
    Ms. HOULAHAN. Thank you. And my next question is sort of a 
follow-on to that to Mr. Carson Elrod. You had mentioned in 
your testimony that the SVOG grants are a lifeline and that 
live entertainment venue sector is a small fraction of the 
large and fragile creative economy at large. And so I have 
heard similar sentiments from businesses like my own, Science 
Explorers, which was ultimately deemed ineligible for SVOG 
relief despite having had to cancel 500 programs of their own 
at the start of the pandemic. How can the SVOG program, 
assuming that we are able to shake loose some more resources, 
increase or enhance the eligibility requirements to be able to 
be improving so that more businesses like that business that I 
am mentioning could be able to receive the relief that they 
need in these challenging times. Is there a way to expand the 
definition or what would you recommend?
    Mr. ELROD. I recommend doing exactly that. And thank you so 
much for the question.
    One of the earliest collaborators we had at Be An #Arts 
Hero was Brian Blythe. And he works in John Kristiansen's 
costume shop in Manhattan. And he started the Costume Industry 
Coalition, which represents over 60 highly skilled, artisanal 
workers, and their whole job is to supply costumes to the 
entire ecosystem of the creative economy. That is cruise lines, 
operas, rock and roll shows, theater. I mean, they are a 
cornerstone of the creative economy nationally. And they had to 
close down completely at the beginning of everything. All of 
their orders dried up. After the short rounds of PPP, they had 
to lay everybody off. And they have been essentially doing, you 
know, kind of Go Fund Me and charities. And they were one of 
the industries that fell through the cracks because the SVOG 
grants did not really contemplate the entirety of the creative 
economy. And it is really important that everybody know that 
that intervention is a watershed moment in American history 
between Congress and the creative economy. And there is nobody 
in the creative economy that is not appreciative of what #Save 
Our Stages and SVOG represents. What would be amazing is to 
superfund it, expand it, and make sure that it really is a 
floor for the entirety of the creative economy to get us 
through this moment and into the next one.
    Ms. HOULAHAN. Thank you. I appreciate it.
    My time has run out and I yield back, Madam Chair.
    Ms. CHU. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    And now the gentleman from New York, Mr. Garbarino, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. GARBARINO. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the 
opportunity to speak, and thank you to the Ranking Member for 
having this hearing today.
    Mr. Elrod, my question was similar to what Ms. Houlahan 
just asked. By the way, loved you in Wedding Crashers.
    I was going to ask you about the other business. I am from 
Long Island, New York. You know, everybody goes to Broadway. 
Everybody goes, you know, they come in and they go restaurants 
and not so we had the Restaurant Revitalization Program that 
tried to help some of these restaurants. But there are other 
parts of the creative ecosystem. You just talked about a 
costume supplier. We had a lot of people that were hurt in New 
York City when the film industry and Broadway was shut down.
    Can you go a little further with what you were just saying? 
You talked about costumes. Who else do we need to expand it to 
if there was another tranche of money coming, like who was left 
out?
    Mr. ELROD. Oh, well, I think that is one of the things 
where I would like to pivot towards like a GAO report or a 
congressional commission so that you can hear from more than 
just four of us. To like really get the Brian Blythes of the 
world in front of you to like really talk about who was there 
and who was left out. I think that would be the most important 
thing to do because I think one of the problems is we do not 
even know what we do not know as I was saying. The wave has 
come in and the damage is not yet knowable. Also our NAICS 
codes do not appropriately include the entirety of the creative 
economy. And so without understanding the fullness of the 
creative economy, we also do not know who slipped through the 
cracks.
    Mr. GARBARINO. Yeah. So the dust has not completely settled 
yet and you will not know probably at least until everything is 
up and running again at full speed, what is missing? Okay. I 
understand that.
    I was in the state legislature for New York for 8 years. 
New York had very generous, I thought, tax program to help 
bring moves and TV shows to the state to get film credits. 
Congress here, we did PPP. We did the Shuttered Venue Operators 
grant program. And there are a couple people from a couple 
different states here. Can you talk about what the states have 
done? Because we also sent them a lot of money to help with 
more local issues and we have Oregon, I think, and Missouri and 
New York. Have any of those states done anything since the 
pandemic shut everything down to help your industries in 
addition to what Congress has done?
    Ms. Garrett?
    Ms. GARRETT. Thank you very much for the question. Yes. So 
very early in the pandemic, a group of arts organizations that 
were much more highly resourced. Some of our smaller 
organizations got together and lobbied for CARES Act funding. 
So we received as a coalition of performing arts theaters, 
performing arts venues, the ballet, the symphony, the opera. 
OSF at another theater called Portland Center stage. We lobbied 
for $8 million in CARES Act funding. And that was actually the 
thing that buoyed us and actually brought me to lobby with the 
Professional Nonprofit Theater Coalition, lobby for access to 
SVOG funding. So once we knew we could do it, we did it again. 
And we were really grateful for the CARES Act funding. We 
talked to some of our other colleagues across the country to 
try to help them figure out ways to lobby for some of those 
resources. In these times, every little dime, every little bit 
counts.
    I also wanted to go back to your question to Carson. There 
are a lot of theater workers who are not recognized as such--
carpenters, stitchers, ushers. A lot of those folks are only 
paid when shows are running. And so they were not necessarily 
affected by industry-specific funds. And so being really clear 
about the full impact across the industry, you know, our ushers 
work every single time a show gets up ad they are just as 
important as the people who stand on page. But there is no way 
to fund them except through unemployment during the pandemic. 
Those are the things that we have to think about.
    Whereas, when we did do the streaming of the shows, we paid 
everybody. Everybody was a part of this production. We paid 
every single person. But we were not able to pay the ushers and 
the carpenters did not receive any kind of funding for that.
    Mr. GARBARINO. Mr. Elrod, you said you wanted to further 
answer something?
    Mr. Carson?
    Mr. ELROD. Basically, exactly what Ms. Garrett said. I was 
thinking of the Small Business Committee, so I think I was 
thinking of small businesses but I probably forgot to leave out 
the real group of people that has been left out are the arts 
workers themselves. And that is why expanded unemployment is 
important. That is why something like the Creative Economy 
Revitalization Act which would give money directly to arts 
workers to apply their trade and bring them into the public 
sphere and make festivals and murals and public works of Art 
and the Arts education for All Act. There are so many things 
that are in front of Congress right now that would help so many 
of those people that have fallen through. And I was embarrassed 
that it slipped my mind. Of course, the arts workers themselves 
are the most important people that have kind of been left out 
of the equation.
    Ms. CHU. The gentleman's time has expired.
    And we have now reached to the end of our Member questions. 
So I will now do my closing statement.
    I want to thank our panel again for being here today. Your 
stories of preserving through the pandemic demonstrate the 
resilience and fortitude of your industry. But it is very clear 
that you still face many challenges today.
    For our economy to fully recover, we must work together to 
overcome the hardships and challenges facing the creative 
economy. Unfortunately, we cannot reverse the damage overnight. 
It will take sustained support and investment to bring these 
businesses back to where they once were. We must work together 
to advance policies that drive recovery in the near-term and 
pave the way for future success. The American Creative Economy 
is one of our most significant resources and we cannot afford 
to leave it behind.
    With that, I would ask unanimous consent that Members have 
5 legislative days to submit statements and supporting 
materials for the record.
    Without objection, so ordered.
    And if there is no further business to come before the 
Committee, we are adjourned. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 12:03 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
                           
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