[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 31 (Wednesday, March 12, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H939-H946]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ARTS AND EDUCATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. GEKAS). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentlewoman from New York [Ms.
Slaughter] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about one of the
best things that we can do in education for our children. It has been
proven over and over again what a wonderful effect it has on them.
Would it surprise you to know that a child in a school in the United
States that has 4 years of arts programs, the verbal scores on the
SAT's go up 67 points and the math scores go up 45? Would it amaze you
to know that the most important thing we can do to cut the dropout rate
and the absenteeism is to have children participate in art, proven over
and over and over again.
One of the most important ways that we can give a child self-esteem,
and so many of them need it, is to give them the ability to create. And
once again, we have learned over and over and over again that children
who create do not destroy.
All this is done in simple programs in schools all over the United
States. And every parent that has ever put on the refrigerator door the
drawing brought from home or the little plaster cast of the hand, the
things that we keep forever, I think probably everything that my
children ever touched is stored away in a box somewhere where I like to
take them out and look at them for my memories, every parent who has
ever experienced that knows the wonderful feeling that that child has
of being able to create and to express.
We are losing whole generations of children these days to violence,
to absenteeism, to disinterest, the inability to learn.
{time} 1900
What happens? A country faced with problems like that, that says at
the same time we are going to turn our back on the one simple cheap
thing that we can do to benefit these children. Does it work? You bet.
I wrote legislation to educate homeless children in the United
States. It is an astonishing fact that every day in this country
between 750,000 and 1 million children are homeless. It is not their
fault. Their parents used to work; they just do not anymore.
A lot of people do not understand what homelessness means to a child.
They can go to a shelter, but they can only stay there a certain number
of days and then they have to move. Or they can live in a State park or
a local park maybe 2 weeks, and then they have to move. It is in every
respect a nomadic existence.
So we have these numbers of children in the United States unable to
get their education, because many times they do not have their birth
certificate. It was always a very important thing for us in the United
States. No child went to school without their inoculations, their birth
certificate, and a permanent address.
This was not an indigenous population in the United States. We had
never really took any plans or even discussed any plans on what we
would do about kids without a permanent address or who maybe lost their
birth certificate in one of those many moves they had to make. So a
family that is confronted, let us say, with putting food on a table or
duplicating a birth certificate for $10, logically and sensibly is
going to opt for food on the table for the children.
So we wrote a little piece of legislation here that said we do not
care whether they have their birth certificate or not. We know they are
born, they are standing in front of us. We want them educated. The
United States cannot go into the next century with children who are
unhealthy, untrained, and uneducated.
One of the most important things, again, that has been important to
this population and consequently to us is the arts programs, is that we
were able to provide these children with the ability to be able to
express themselves, to be able to deal with what had happened to them,
for the first time to be able to open up to a stranger as they
discussed the work that they had done.
So the United States over the years has decided that art may not be
too important to us, or that maybe it is only for the rich people who
want to go to the museums or the art galleries, and for the rest of us
it does not really matter. Well, we could be meeting here in a Quonset
hut but we are not.
We are here in a work of art that every day makes all of us who work
here not only understand how lucky we are to have been elected, but how
blessed we are to work in this building with the American eagle
overhead and our first President's wonderful portrait by Stuart over
there that every schoolchild knows. The first thing that occurred to me
when I got here was that was the original. We have Lafayette over here
on the other side and all the wonderful carvings of people who have
come before us.
What is it that really tells us what kind of a nation, one that has
disappeared off the earth, was like? When we excavate, how do we
determine whether they were enlightened, whether they were civilized?
Simple. By the art they left behind.
How do we explain to children growing up in the United States what it
was like for the pioneers, the people in Conastoga wagons, the people
who opened up the West, the patriots? By the art left behind. This
Capitol is full of it. This city is full of it. This city is in many
ways a work of art.
Can this country afford to be the only industrial country on the face
of the earth that determines that art is not important? I do not think
so. There is not an industrial country anywhere on the planet that does
not have a national budget for the arts; sometimes 1 or 2 percent of
their total budget.
What do we do? President Nixon started the National Endowment for the
Arts because he thought the United States ought to make some statement
as well. And over the years we have whittled away at the money and
whittled away at it until now, this year, we are being asked to pay
$136 million for arts programs in every nook and cranny in the United
States, $136 million, which is a great deal less than the United States
spends every year for military bands.
It does not amount to a whole lot in the scheme of things when we
think about what it does. Let me give my colleagues some idea of what
happens there. Let us talk not about the beauty of it but the economy.
The arts support 1.3 million jobs. The nonprofit arts community
generates $36.8 billion annually in economic activity. The arts
produces $790 million
[[Page H940]]
in local government revenue and $1.2 billion in State government
revenue. And for the $136 million that we hope we can vote this year to
put in, we will get back almost $4 billion in taxes paid into the
Federal Treasury.
This is not an idle piece of work. I know of no other thing in this
Government, and I have served three terms on the Committee on the
Budget, I promise my colleagues I know of no other expenditure that we
make that brings back that kind of monetary return. It just does not
happen.
So if we add to that what we can do for the children in school,
something that we struggle every day with, and we just heard the
previous speaker talking about children not being able to read or to
talk and all these kinds of things, we can see that some of these
programs can open them up and help them to do that. Why would we not
want to?
Now, I am not going to ask anyone to take my word for it, because I
do not altogether understand it myself. But there is a direct
correlation between dance and math. No two ways about it. Today,
classical music is supposed to stimulate some part of the brain and
that then that individual will have a better idea of spacial concepts.
That is wonderful.
We do not know how all this works, but we are right now in the decade
of the brain. All these wonderful studies have been taking place and we
see how certain parts of the brain light up under certain stimulation
and we have found out so much.
We have found out, for one thing, that we have to begin at birth,
with a baby, to stimulate it, to educate it. We have a short window of
opportunity, really, to open up that little mind to be everything that
it can be.
It is critically important that we look at the United States and
whether we are going to be a participant in this, in this decade of the
brain, or are we again going to turn our backs on it.
Mr. Speaker, I want to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia
[Mr. Lewis]; and then we will next be joined by my colleague from
California [Mr. Farr].
Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague and
my good friend from New York [Ms. Slaughter] for holding this special
order.
Mr. Speaker, in 1965, Congress established the National Endowment for
the Arts. The idea behind the endowment was to create a climate for
freedom, freedom of thought, freedom of imagination. Congress found
that while no government can create a great artist or a great scholar,
it is necessary and appropriate for the Federal Government to encourage
freedom of thought, freedom of expression. I believe that we must
provide the resources to support these freedoms.
Since that time, our Nation has changed dramatically. We have
witnessed what I like to call a nonviolent revolution with the civil
rights movement. We have seen a technological revolution in all areas
of society. We have seen our Nation grow and really change.
Mr. Speaker, I grew up in rural Alabama, in an area without a
telephone, without running water, without power. My father was a tenant
farmer, a sharecropper. He was not allowed to vote or sit in some
public places. But today we can fly through the air like a bird and
swim through the water like a fish. We put a man on the Moon. We
communicate by satellite, by computer on the Internet.
These revolutions are social revolutions, our cultural revolutions,
our revolutions in science and technology, are the results of our
collective imagination as a Nation, our sense of direction and our need
for growth and change.
Throughout history, as the Nation has grown and changed, it is
imagination, it is art, that has uplifted us and guided us and defined
us. It is imagination that has made our dreams come true.
Just 2 weeks ago I had a great experience, a wonderful experience. I
visited an elementary school in Atlanta called Mary Lin Elementary. I
was impressed and amazed by all of the students at this little school.
Children as young as 4, in kindergarten, 4 years old, but also children
of all ages had drawn pictures of what they understood to be the civil
rights movement. These young students, these young bright minds, had
decorated every hall in every building with their colorful vision, each
drawing different, each drawing unique. Every student was involved.
Every student understood something about history through their
imagination, through art.
Just yesterday I had lunch with an art teacher from the Atlanta
public schools, Ms. Deborah Laden. She told me that she received less
than $100 for each student in her class for art education. It is a
shame and a disgrace that in a Nation as rich and as powerful as the
United States, in a Nation, yes, that has put a man on the Moon, we do
not invest more in our children, in their ability to dream dreams and
to share and express those dreams.
In the same way children learn through art, we all are inspired by
professional artists and others who have taken time to explore human
existence and human history. It was President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
who once said,
Behind the storm of daily conflict and crisis, the dramatic
confrontations, the tumult of political struggle, the poet,
the artist, the musician, continue their quiet work of
centuries, building bridges of experience between people,
reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires
and despairs, and reminding him that the forces that unite
are deeper than those that divide.
President Kennedy went on to say,
I see little of more importance to the future of our
country and our civilization than full recognition of the
place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our
culture, society must set the artist free to follow his
vision.
Today, more than 35 years later, these words are more important than
ever. We are in the midst of the information age. Our workers must be
able to learn quickly. They must be imaginative thinkers and creative
individuals. They must handle the tools of technology with a sense of
philosophy, a sense of history, a sense of vision, a sense of
community.
With a modest investment, just a little bit, a modest investment, we
can help fill in the gaps of American education and encourage art
education in our schools. With a very modest investment, we can help
decorate every hallway of every school in every State with creative
vision of our youngest minds, uplifted and inspired by their own
imagination and the imagination of each other.
These young children, because of art, because of their imagination,
may grow up to be visionaries, to be scientists, artists, doctors,
lawyers, ministers. These young children will lead us into the 21st
century.
Some of my colleagues today may ask if we can afford to invest in the
arts. Our answer must be, how can we afford not to? Free the artists,
provide the necessary resources, let the imagination, the minds run
wild. It is what our country, it is what our society is all about.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman again for holding this special
order on the arts.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. And, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his
participation. That was wonderful and I appreciate that very much.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would yield to my colleague from California, [Mr.
Farr] and we will have a few discussions here on this same subject.
{time} 1915
Mr. FARR of California. I thank my distinguished colleague from New
York for yielding, and the Speaker tonight. We spent a wonderful
weekend in his beautiful State of Pennsylvania.
Walking over to the Capitol tonight to join in this colloquy on the
arts, I could not help but think as I looked up at the sky and saw the
crescent Moon up there, just the wisp of a crescent Moon over the
Capitol, how this building is indeed a living museum of art. It is a
living museum of history, a living museum of democracy in the United
States. Yet more than ever what this building demonstrates is the
creative talent, the historic talent of this country displayed in
paintings, displayed in photographs, displayed in works of sculpture in
Statuary Hall, displayed in the architecture of the building, displayed
as a symbol to the greatest democracy in the world.
And yet Members who serve in Congress like to think that there is an
option in this country, that arts are essentially a disposable
commodity, that it is something frilly. I cannot help but
[[Page H941]]
think, as we talk so much about the need for this country's underlying
security and its economic creativity, that the most creative aspect of
America is in the diversity of its arts. It is the engine of our
economy, and where that begins is in schools. It also begins in the
home. It also begins in the political families that we live with.
This weekend when we went on the retreat, the bipartisan retreat to
talk about how we can bring more civility to Congress, to this House,
to this very Chamber we are in tonight, I could not help but think that
as the families engaged in this discussion with their children there,
that what the leadership of this House provided was essentially a
weekend of arts for the children. That is what they chose, as we
discussed among ourselves. They chose to give the children art so that
the children could be very creative, and every parent blessed that.
And yet some of those parents come here at the same time the next day
or this next week or the next month and will do everything they can to
discourage the funding of arts through the public sector. What we are
about is education in America. What education is about is an educated
work force. And what a work force is about is building an economy. And
what that economy is about is in a global, competitive society, is
being a little bit more creative. It is not just the creative mind. It
is the creative fingers, it is the creative toes. Therefore, if we
really want this country to be strong and independent, we have got to
invest in the arts.
When I was in the State legislature in California, I cochaired the
Joint Committee on the Arts. We invested in the arts in California.
Why? Not because it was an optional thing to do; it was because
industrial development in California demands it. The Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce demands that we invest in arts because they sell
arts very well in Los Angeles. San Francisco demands that you invest in
the arts because San Francisco is known for its arts.
New York, where you come from, what would New York be without the
arts? What would the city of New York be? Look how much money the city
puts into it, private sector and public sector money. And yet again
where we fail to really commit ourselves to the arts is in our public
school education program.
In California we have made it so important that we require that in
order to graduate from high school, every student must take at least a
year of arts, or we give them the option of a year of foreign
languages. Both of those are, we think, skills necessary to compete in
the 21st century.
We are here tonight to remind our colleagues that the arts are not a
frivolous, disposable commodity in America. They are essential not only
to our cultural well-being but to our economic well-being.
I applaud the gentlewoman for her dedication to the arts, for forming
the Arts Caucus, for allowing high school children from all over the
United States to be in competitive contests in their districts and hang
their art here in the Capitol so that they can be role models to the
thousands, to the millions of students who walk through this Capitol
and see children their own age being able to promote the arts.
I thank the gentlewoman for allowing me to join in on her colloquy on
the arts, and I would remind all our colleagues that the arts are some
of the most essential products of American freedom in a democratic
society, an expression of one's self, of community and of nation.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Farr].
I yield to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bentsen].
Mr. BENTSEN. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I
rise today to recognize the importance of the arts in our Nation and
our communities.
The National Endowment for the Arts, the NEA, and the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the NEH, serve important educational,
cultural and economic roles in our society. The benefits of the
Endowments for the Arts and Humanities have often been overlooked.
While much attention has been paid to a few controversial grants, most
NEA money goes to support important community programs such as museums,
libraries, schools, and orchestras. The NEA is a great investment in
the economic growth of every community and country. The nonprofit arts
industry alone generates $36.8 billion annually in economic activity
and supports 1.3 million jobs and returns $3.4 billion to the Federal
Government in income taxes.
In terms of dollars and cents, the United States spends only 64 cents
per person to support the arts each year, a level 50 times lower than
other industrialized countries. The arts industry attracts tourist
dollars, stimulates business development, spurs urban renewal, and
improves the total quality of life for our cities and towns.
Additionally, the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities
broaden public access to the arts so all Americans can participate in
and enjoy and learn from the arts, improving the quality of life of our
children and families. The NEA supports educational programs such as
teacher institutes, museum exhibitions and advanced study grants that
enrich the cultural livelihood of our communities and our Nation.
Not only do these programs ensure accessibility to our museums,
universities and libraries, but they also serve as a vital link to our
children's education. These programs are an integral part of our
comprehensive education that help broaden the horizons of our children
and instill in them a love of learning. They represent our Nation's
cultural heritage, creativity, and pride.
Without the assistance of the NEA, various programs vital to my
district would not be possible. The Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, the
Alley Theater of Houston, the Dance on Tour Program and the Houston
Grand Opera would be in jeopardy.
Young Audiences of Houston is another valuable organization which
works in my district, that demonstrates the beneficial impacts and
contributions the arts have in our communities. Celebrating its 40th
anniversary this year, Young Audiences of Houston is 1 of 32
independent chapters of Young Audiences, Inc. that form the Nation's
largest nonprofit arts and education organization and the only arts
organization to be a 1994 recipient of the National Medal of Arts.
Young Audiences is dedicated to educating children through the arts and
to making the arts an integral part of the school curriculum.
Young Audiences' highly participatory, curriculum-related arts
programs reinforce classroom instruction, foster creative thinking
skills, awaken interest in learning and broaden student understanding
of world arts and cultures. Emphasis is placed on multicultural
programming and on serving children at risk in schools with high need.
The arts provide positive role models, enhance self-esteem, foster
academic achievement, encourage students' sense of ownership in the
educational process and help young people elect to remain in school.
Furthermore, Young Audiences contributes to the economic vigor that a
healthy cultural climate brings to the city and helps keep Houston in
the forefront of arts education reform.
I congratulate Young Audiences on their 40th anniversary and commend
them for their dedication to educating children and communities through
the arts. The NEA and the NEH are at the forefront in the preservation
of our historical and cultural heritage, encouraging the use of
technology, strengthening education, and broadening access to the arts
for all Americans to participate in and enjoy. Our continued support of
the arts will enhance our children's future, their educational
development, economic growth and their quality of life.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bentsen] for
coming and joining us this evening. That was a very important message.
We are trying to reinforce what art means to children in making better
students, cutting out the dropout rate, all the wonderful things we
want for the children at risk.
I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Horn], the co-chair of
the Congressional Members Organization for the Arts.
Mr. HORN. I thank my colleague from New York. She had done just a
splendid job when she chaired the arts caucus a few years ago when I
first came here in 1993, and I am delighted that she is reinvigorating
it, because there are many Members in this Chamber that have strong
support for the arts.
[[Page H942]]
Increasingly in our communities, there is stronger and stronger
support for the arts. One of the reasons there is stronger support is
that the National Endowment for the Arts has done, on the whole, a
splendid job. So has the National Endowment for the Humanities. So has
the Institute for Museum Services. These are minusculely funded by the
Federal Government, but they make a difference, because we have the
opportunity to engage with partnerships at the local level. The match
money is very effective in involving people.
I am fortunate in my district, which includes Long Beach to Downey in
southern California, Los Angeles County, that we have vigorous arts
groups, and we have had excellent support from the NEA. That is very
important to our museums. The Long Beach Museum of Art, the California
State University Art Museum. All of those have been recognized as
having high quality, that involve people, involve young people.
The symphonies in several of the cities in my district go out and
reach out into the schools so young people can see what I had the
opportunity to see when I was 5 or 6 years old. I did not know much
about music at the age of 5 and 6 except the piano and singing around
the table with everybody else. But one night in Hollister, CA,
population 3,500 at that time, in San Benito County whose total
population even though it was 60 miles long was about 13,000 people, to
the high school came a wonderful musical organization, a symphony.
Everybody dressed in the magical black tie and their instruments shiny.
How did they end up in Hollister, CA, where there were not too many
people? It is because the Works Progress Administration, the WPA, had
funded them to go into the rural areas of our State where all of us
were growing up pretty much on ranches, a few grew up in the towns, and
they performed some of the great music that night. It made a difference
in my life. I decided I wanted to be a music major, which I was through
high school. I did not pursue it that much in college because I
realized I did not have the world's greatest talent on the French horn.
I was OK, but not the greatest talent, and that my desire to be a
conductor would probably be a dubious desire, although I had been the
conductor of all the student orchestras. But that made a difference in
my life, and that has made a difference in millions of young people's
lives.
A dean I had at California State University Long Beach when I was
president, I made her Dean of Fine Arts, Maxine Merlino. She is in her
eighties. She holds the world's swimming championship for her age
group. She was doing murals here in Washington, DC in what we know as
the Old Post Office down a few blocks from the White House, and those
murals are still here, and they are bringing joy to people as they look
at those murals.
We can replicate that, in towns, in communities, in rural areas, in
mountain areas, and in our great urban areas. It is tremendously
important to continue these endowments. We have got a few critics. Yes,
they object to 10 grants out of the 100,000 made. That is not bad. That
beats baseball's scoring. It beats football's scoring. Obviously when
you are in the arts, some things are going to be controversial. That
does not mean we need to approve them. Just do not go see them. Go look
at something else. Art has different tastes for different people. We
have got to remember, this is a country of great diversity, and we need
to bring out in the various immigrant groups, as we have in Long Beach
with the Cambodian group, the groups from Laos and their beautiful work
that is on display in the various museums in the city of Long Beach.
Arts are also increasingly entrepreneurial. Yesterday my colleague
from New York and I had the pleasure of sponsoring with several of our
colleagues the visit of Bill Strickland from Pittsburgh. He has been
awarded the Genius Award of the MacArthur Foundation, and he truly is a
genius. He was a young man who could barely read, who dropped out, who
took up ceramics and from that artistic career he gained the self-
esteem that he needed, and by one chance after the other, he
incrementally has built one of the major centers of not only the arts
but a number of other things, because one thing led to the other. And
he has worked with out-of-work members from the steel mills, welfare
mothers and others, and, as we all know, we are talking about the
welfare bill in here and how do you get people into the job market that
have never had an opportunity to be in the job market? He has shown it
can be done.
{time} 1930
What has he developed? As I say, he started with ceramics, and pretty
soon people sold some of the ceramics work. He trained them as artists.
Then he worked with industry, and he had pharmaceutical training, he
had television training, he had a whole series of things: flower
gardens, horticulture, a catering service developed to feed the
students that came to his school, an integrated thing, a small
community in one of the worst districts in Pittsburgh where people
would often be afraid to even go to an event at night. And in his
beautifully designed buildings, which have been the work of both
corporations, individual philanthropists and just plain knowing how to
make the money in your food operations and your sale of art he has
developed a marvelous pinnacle and vista where young people and young
and old can come and appreciate what has happened.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the time she has given me, and
I wish her well in this endeavor.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Horn, you know one of the things that he told us
yesterday that really stuck with me was that he has this wonderful
building and all these students who come there, and they have been
there for 10 years, and 2 blocks away is the school that he went to as
a youngster, and it has bars on the windows and police cars outside and
people patrolling the perimeter. But in his facility two blocks away he
said that he needs no guards in the daytime, there has never been any
graffiti, and despite all of the important and expensive equipment and
things he has inside that building nothing has ever been touched.
Mr. HORN. That is right, and he also said that since he happens to be
African-American and the African-American black students that go there,
and white students go there, there has never been one incident, not
one.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Once again we just find that arts brings people
together and does the kind of thing that we want for human beings, and
it really would be dreadful if we made a statement here on this floor
that it did not matter to us.
Mr. HORN. And it seems to me that whether it be the WPA Orchestra in
1935 that I saw or the hundreds of orchestras that have benefited from
grants from the endowment and their outreach into schools they can
change people's vision, and we all know about the books.
One of the professors at California State University Long Beach wrote
a best seller called ``Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain''; Dr.
Betty Edwards of our department of art, and another one on ``Drawing on
the Artist Within.'' A million copies of the first book, half a million
copies of the second.
People can learn to be artists not necessarily for the commercial
aspects but for their own enjoyment, and I have felt for 30 years at
least that if we stress the right side of the brain in the schools, not
just the left side of the brain, important though that is with
mathematics and all the rest, we would build self-esteem in these
children, and we would then transfer them into success in some of the
mathematical, history, whatever subjects, languages, all the rest. But
we need to help people develop their creative talents, and it has made
a difference.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. And we find that once that right brain is developed it
spills over on to the left-hand side, and, as I pointed out earlier,
that just 4 years of art, the verbal scores on SAT's will go up 65
points, and math, 45, and I know of no other thing we can do for these
students to get that kind of result.
Mr. HORN. I happened to go to a high school where we had an
outstanding music department. We had a 100-piece concert band, a 60-
voice choir and a 60-piece orchestra. Now that was in a school of 500
where only maybe 10 out of the 110 graduates went on to college, but it
made a difference in peoples' lives to hear Tchaikovsky, to hear
Brahms, to hear Beethoven, to have
[[Page H943]]
tears come to your eyes. It makes you a human being, and that is what
we ought to be encouraging in this country.
Think of this king of this or that country had not been funding money
to Beethoven or to Mozart. Those were the patrons of their day two
centuries ago. What a difference their music has made in our lives.
Mozart died, as we all know, at a very young age, in his thirties, and
Tchaikovsky and others had patrons.
Well, there are still patrons for our symphonies, and some large
symphonies frankly I do not worry about; they can get the money in a
major city. But it is those middle-sized cities and those very small
cities that are just beginning in a musical adventure that we need to
give encouragement and stimulus to.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. That is the best thing about the NEA. It wants to make
sure that every nook and cranny from sea to shining sea has the same
opportunity.
I yield now to my colleague, Connie Morella, from Maryland.
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York, my
good friend, Mrs. Slaughter, for yielding to me and for the special
order on an issue that we all believe is so very important.
I rise, Mr. Speaker, to express my support for the arts and to
highlight the important world of the arts and the educational
development of our children and the economic growth of our country.
The arts and humanities have absorbed their fair share of budget cuts
over the past 2 years. Funding for the National Endowment for the Arts
and the National Endowment for the Humanities has been slashed by 40
percent. I oppose any efforts to eliminate or make further cuts in
funding for the NEA and the NEH.
I wholeheartedly believe that Government should support the arts, and
according to a Lou Harris Poll I am in sync with most of the Nation.
The latest Lou Harris public opinion poll concludes that 79 percent of
the American public favors a governmental role in funding the arts.
Sixty-one percent would pay $5 more in taxes to support the arts, and
56 percent would pay $10 more in taxes for the arts.
Mr. Speaker, 86 percent of America's adults participate in one or
more of the arts. Frankly you know that is 33 percent more than
participate; by that I mean vote in Presidential elections. Cultural
funding is a mere two one-hundredths of 1 percent of our multi-billion-
dollar budget. We spend 70 cents per person on the humanities, 64 cents
per person on the arts, on history, English literature, foreign
languages, sociology, anthropology, and other disciplines. Seventy
cents a person buys teacher training programs. These programs provide
professional development opportunities for our teachers to increase
their knowledge in their field and pass it on to their students. It is
estimated that the 1,000 teachers who participate each summer in NEH-
funded summer institutes directly impact 85,000 students per year.
In Maryland the arts are an important part of the economy. In 1995,
for example, the arts contributed $634 million to the State's economy
through direct spending by arts organizations and audiences. More than
$21 million was generated in State and local taxes paid by arts
organizations and audiences, and 19,000 jobs were generated. On our
National Arts Advocacy Day, March 11, 1997, members of the Maryland
Citizens for the Arts visited Capitol Hill and brought with them a
special message: ``The arts stimulate economic growth.'' For every
dollar the NEA invests in communities there is a twenty-fold return in
jobs, services and contracts.
The arts invest in our communities, the arts develop in our citizens
a sense of community, and they contribute to the liveability for
families in that community.
The arts are basic to a thorough education. Student achievement and
test scores in academic subjects can improve when the arts are used to
assist learning in mathematics, social studies, creative writing and
communication skills, and I am particularly proud that the chairman of
the Maryland Citizens for the Arts is Eliot Pfanstiel who is a
constituent of mine.
Mr. Speaker, our legislative agenda could have far reaching
implications for the cultural vitality of our Nation. Art is the
symbolic expression of who we are. It is how we remember. It is
important, even vital, that we support and encourage the promotion of
the arts and humanities so that the rich and cultural story of our past
can be made available to future generations.
I have often liked the expression that the arts are the border of
flowers around the pot of civilization, but I would say they are more
than the border of flowers. They really are also the border of
nutrients, what we really need for our subsistence and for our cultural
vitality and for the greatness of our country.
I thank the gentlewoman from New York again for arranging this
special order, and I know she is so important to all of us.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank you so much for being here, and I appreciate
your message.
Mr. Speaker, I want to close with two very brief examples of what we
were talking about with the revitalization of towns' economy through
art. The Northeast has suffered out migration, as you know, over a
number of years, and one little town in New York State called Peekskill
was really in very bad condition. The downtown area was basically dead,
theatres had closed, restaurants closed. It was not much happening
there until a sort of spillover from New York City. A famous artist
came into Peekskill, and a well-known sculptor took over the old movie
theater. It was perfect for his massive work, and galleries began to
open, and then there was a massive change in Peekskill. People began to
come in droves. The restaurants opened up again because people needed
someplace to live, they needed a place to stay, they needed a place to
buy gasoline, they needed a place for snacks, they needed things for
souvenirs for their children, and that economy was brought back because
of the art that was in Peekskill.
Providence, RI has just recently embarked on the same kind of an
adventure in their downtown area. They have turned parts of abandoned
factories and other buildings into places where performing artists and
other artists can work in a group in one square mile of downtown
Providence. It has been absolutely an amazing revitalization. It has
brought back that city of 160,000 people to life and has stopped the
out migration to other parts of the State and to the country.
Art speaks for itself, but I do think it is important for me and for
my colleagues to say to you that we are not asking here for anything
that is frivolous, for anything that does not pay its own way, for
anything that does not help our children in incalculable ways.
So, Mr. Speaker, when art reauthorization comes to the floor of the
House, I urge my colleagues to support it, and I hope that everybody in
America will as well.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to celebrate the arts in
America and to call on my colleagues to fully fund the National
Endowment for the Arts [NEA], the National Endowment for the Humanities
[NEH], and the Institute of Museum and Library Services [IMLS].
Whether it is visual art, performance art, music, poetry, literature,
or historical preservation, the NEA, the NEH, and the IMLS have all
served our Nation well, and America is stronger because of them.
I am proud that my district includes most of the Broadway theater and
many of the nonprofit theater institutions, including Lincoln Center
and the New York Shakespeare Festival. It also includes the SoHo art
galleries, museums, radio and television studios, record and film
companies, and hundreds of individual artists, writers, dancers, and
musicians. The positive economic impact of this arts community has long
been documented. The contributions they make to the economy and to the
quality of life in New York is immense. In fact, when people nationally
and internationally think about New York City, they often think about
its cultural richness.
Other cities are beginning to realize that the arts draw people into
the city and provide a valuable economic boost to the local economy. As
a result, mayors across the country are rushing to build arts and
cultural centers in their own cities and are seeking national support
for their efforts. Just as the arts community in New York receives a
portion of Federal support, so too should these newly emerging artistic
centers. That is just one reason why we will need to increase arts
funding to expand the reach of the arts to people throughout the
Nation.
[[Page H944]]
Another reason to support the national endowments is the nature of
the projects they fund. Let me give you some examples. The NEA
supported a consortium project to expand Alvin Ailey's summer dance
camps for inner-city youths in Philadelphia and Chicago; the NEA
supported a program to create a national model for an integrated
kindergarten through sixth grade arts curriculum to improve learning in
all subjects and offer new ways to engage students; the NEA supported
an initiative to provide music instruction for financially
disadvantaged minority children in New York City public schools; the
NEA supported a program to teach playwriting to young people ages 9 to
13 in one of New York City's toughest neighborhoods; and the NEA
supported a project to produce and broadcast telecasts of the public
television series ``Live from Lincoln Center.'' Now it is possible for
folks in Wyoming and Indiana, not just New York City, to enjoy Lincoln
Center performances. Helping children learn, reaching out to
disadvantaged communities, boosting the economy, and providing national
access to great performances--this is what the NEA is doing in 1997 to
support the arts and to improve America, and that is why we in Congress
must continue our bipartisan support for the arts. In fact, more
projects like these deserve to be supported by the Federal Government
to inspire our young people, to encourage them to nurture their natural
talents, and to live up to their potential.
Therefore, not only must we preserve our cultural agencies, but we
must increase their funding substantially, so that they can better
serve our people.
Without these cultural agencies many beneficial projects would not
exist, and America would be weaker without them. Think about how the
arts touch and improve all of our lives. One way to do this is to
imagine what the world would be like without art. Some have suggested
to me that we ought to have a national arts awareness day. A day when
we try to live without art. When we wake up without music, when we work
in offices without wall hangings, when TV's don't work, when the
theaters and opera houses are closed, when museums and libraries don't
open their doors, and when even the reading of books is not allowed. A
day when all of our national monuments are cloaked in black and art is
taken out of our public spaces. The Capitol building itself would have
to close down, because in every corridor and on every wall there are
examples of public support for the arts--statues, paintings, and
historic documents all serve to enrich this building and those of us
who work here. Even the thought of a day without art is frightening.
So, we must all recognize how integral the arts are to our life
experiences, how they serve to improve the lives of Americans, and how
they enrich us as a people and as a nation.
The Congress must continue its support for the arts if America, as
President Clinton noted in his State of the Union Address, is to remain
as a beacon, not only of liberty, but of creativity.
Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I rise to denounce the shameful war
being waged on the arts and humanities. The National Endowment for the
Arts [NEA] and National Endowment for the Humanities [NEH] have had
fundamental impacts on our lives and our children's lives over the past
30 years. It is difficult to comprehend reasons behind vicious attacks
on the very things that enrich our lives through music, art, dance,
history, and other means of celebrating culture.
The appropriations process of the 104th Congress severely cut funding
for the NEA and NEH. The NEA suffered a cut of 39 percent from $162
million in fiscal year 1995 to $99.5 million in fiscal year 1997, and
the NEH, a cut of 36 percent from $172 million in fiscal year 1995 to
$110 million in fiscal year 1997. These cuts have forced the NEA and
NEH to reduce staff and grants to States, which has hurt local
communities in every congressional district.
Some would have gone farther and had these agencies slated for
termination--the NEA by September 30, 1997, and the NEH by September
30, 1998. Fortunately, such proposals were eliminated before final
passage of the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997. We must
keep them from ever becoming law and prevent the NEA and NEH from being
eliminated.
Legislation to reauthorize the NEA and NEH--only to have them phased
out--was rushed last year through the formerly named Economic and
Educational Opportunities Committee. The arguments used then against
both agencies were skewed. Those wanting to eliminate the NEA
overemphasized a few, select projects believed improper for the
Government to fund. Efforts to typify these projects which make up a
very small percentage of all projects handled by the NEA jeopardized
all other educational and meaningful theater, dance, orchestra,
literature, folk arts, arts education, and many other activities
enjoyed in our communities. The NEH was likewise brought into the mix.
Such tactics are still being employed particularly by NEA opponents,
despite several changes in the operation of this agency under the
leadership of its Chair, Jane Alexander. Throughout 1994, the NEA
performed a comprehensive review of grant review and monitoring
procedures, tightened guidelines, and eliminated subgranting to third
party entities which had allowed projects to bypass strict NEA
application review. In 1995, the NEA conducted a reduction-in-force by
40 percent, while being threatened with further restrictions by
Congress to eliminate grants to individual artists and abolish seasonal
operating support to organizations. These additional restrictions
became law in April 1996, following weeks of an unprecedented
Government shutdown, included in the omnibus appropriations bill. At
the end of 1996, the NEA released its first round of grants under a
newly revamped grant structure, approving more than 300 projects
totaling almost $18 million.
The NEA has clearly been responding to direction from Congress to
rework the way it operates. It is wrong for this agency to be further
subjected to unreasonable scrutiny and criticism.
Similar hostility toward the NEH is unwarranted and unjustified.
This Congress must approve President Clinton's request to restore
funding for the NEA and NEH to adequate levels at $136 million for each
agency. Many State budgets are already strained and cannot substitute
for Federal support from the NEA and NEH.
In fiscal year 1997 in the State of Hawaii alone, the NEA funded the
Hawaii Alliance for Arts in Education at $50,000 for Hula Ki'i--a
complex of Hawaiian traditional arts to be integrated into school
curricula on the islands of Moloka'i, Oahu, and Kaua'i. The NEA has
also funded the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts in Honolulu to
support a 2-year statewide traditional arts apprenticeship program and
production of a radio series featuring documentary interviews with
apprenticeship participants. I find these and other projects given
grants in the past to be very worthwhile and valuable to residents of
Hawaii, as well as tourists visiting my State.
The NEH has, since 1977, approved challenge grants to Hawaii totaling
$910,700, which has allowed humanities institutions to raise more than
$2.7 million in private funding.
For example, Hawai'i Pacific University is using a $575,000 NEH
challenge grant to raise more than $1.7 million in private gifts for a
self-sustaining endowment that will support a visiting professorship in
the humanities, a senior chair in world history, and information
technology acquisitions. NEH also helped in the wake of destruction
caused by Hurricane Iniki by making eight emergency grants to damaged
libraries, archives, and museums totaling $202,000.
We must continue to support the NEA and NEH on the merits of positive
impacts these agencies have in our local communities. I urge my
colleagues to support restoration of funding for both agencies, and
continued dedication to arts and humanities.
Mr. MANTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in
expressing my support for continued Federal funding for the arts, which
play a critical role in our communities and our schools. I would like
to thank my colleague from New York, Congresswoman Slaughter, for
scheduling this special order.
As a member of the Congressional Arts Caucus, I take a special
interest in protecting the future of art programs. Because most
cultural programs cannot survive solely on private funding, we must
continue to ensure they receive adequate public support.
The arts play an essential role throughout our Nation, in both rural
and urban areas. In my district of Queens, I am pleased to represent a
number of theaters, museums, and dance groups who enrich our
neighborhoods with their talents. Funding cuts would be devastating for
these organizations. In fiscal year 1997, I was pleased to see 12
cultural groups in my district received Federal grants for their
projects. In addition, I have been pleased to participate in the
congressional art competition, where one of my young constituents, Ji
Mi Yang, was the most recent winner from the Seventh District. I look
forward to participating in this competition again in 1997.
Art programs play a vital role in our communities and in our schools.
By enhancing art programs in our schools, we encourage the creative
side of students while producing more well-rounded, self-confident
individuals. Art programs enhance our communities. People of all social
classes enjoy music, theater, art, and dance. Bringing these enjoyments
to our neighborhoods strengthens the local economy while enhancing
cultural understanding.
President Clinton articulated his strong support for the arts and
humanities during his State of the Union speech. Recently, the
President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities released a report,
``Creative America,'' which reemphasized the need to support
[[Page H945]]
art programs and made several recommendations for strengthening
cultural support in our society.
During the 105th Congress, we will continue to debate the future of
Federal funding for the arts and I urge my colleagues to join me in
continuing to support funding for vital cultural programs.
Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, what I have found to be most
inspiring in my life is the act of giving from people and organizations
that have very little for themselves. This exemplary behavior is often
exhibited by citizens in our nonprofit groups who, despite serious
budget constraints, seem to be able to reach down deep and come up with
a little more for those around them. The NEA and NEH are two such
agencies.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has again written a letter urging the
President, Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Speaker Lott to consider that,
The arts and humanities serve as an essential and forceful
vehicle to educate our citizens, help our struggling youth,
spur economic growth in our communities, and bring us
together as a nation.
And I could not agree with this sentiment more.
As a proud Representative of one of the world's most celebrated
cultural centers, I am appalled that this body would consider zeroing
out funds for two of the most judicious and economical organizations by
any business' standards. The fact is, that since the 40-percent
reduction in arts funding, the American public spends only 38 cents per
person to fund the largest cultural voice in America. The fact is, all
other developed nations spend more than 2 to 10 times as much as the
United States. The fact is, through its public-private partnerships,
the NEA draws roughly $12 for every $1 in Federal funding it is
awarded. The fact is, the arts have generated billions of dollars
through many of our industries and return over 10 percent of what it
earns through taxes. The fact is, the nonprofit arts industry
represents nearly 1 percent of our work force.
There are many, many more economic reasons to support the NEA and
NEH--we all know them, and yet the Republican leadership is still on
the warpath to kill Federal sponsorship of the arts. As far as I am
concerned, the fight to end our Federal arts institutions is yet
another assault on children. These are not the children of the
privileged as the Republican leadership would have us believe, but the
kids who are, at their best, culturally deprived, and at their worst,
at-risk youth with little in their life to keep them going.
I am extremely honored to serve and be served by what I consider the
single greatest arts region in the world. New York City is not only
revered for its famous collections and prosperous operas and dance
productions, but because it has a rich tradition of sharing these
treasures with those less fortunate within the community and throughout
the United States. The wealthy will most likely always have their
cultivation, but Federal dollars through the NEA and NEH provides
access for those who would not. And even though Harris polls still show
that Americans want higher investment in the arts, I think that we have
no idea how these agencies touch our lives.
We can find so much waste in our Government departments, not least of
all Defense, but the NEA and NEH have the most flawless budgetary
records. The radical right has been very clever in distorting small
glitches in NEA grants and have purposely misled the public. In
reality, the NEA and the NEH are the greatest gifts we can offer our
children and future generations and one of the most generous outreach
services we can provide to the public.
I think it is important to remember that only positive energy comes
from these programs. We cannot lose when we invest in the arts. This
meager investment helps us to learn more about our history and
ourselves and conveys to us our common humanity and I would loathe to
see the dying of this outstanding legacy.
I fully stand by the President's decision to restore funding to these
agencies to what they were a few years ago and am pleased to stand with
my colleagues from across the aisle who understand what the value of
these agencies is to the greatest Nation in the world. I would also
like to thank my friend and colleague, Louise Slaughter, for her
tireless efforts in defending the arts and for her most recent
undertaking in rejuvenating the Congressional Member Organization for
the Arts.
Please support including the arts in our national agenda by fully
funding the NEA, NEH, and IMLS at the President's suggested levels.
Mr. LAZIO of New York. Mr. Speaker, we often lose sight of the
positive effect that music, painting, theater, and dance have on our
lives and the lives of our children. With that, I rise today as a
reminder of the importance of the arts.
Beyond the metropolitan theaters and museums, the arts touch our
remote suburbs and rural areas through dance troupes and local choirs.
Folk art festivals across the country provide an arena for creative
expression that might be overlooked by the commercial arts industry.
These local initiatives, in turn, spur the economy through increased
tourism, and encourage a sense of community.
In my home county of Suffolk, NY, approximately 100 arts
organizations employ 400 full-time employees and over 2,000 part-time
employees. The arts generate nearly $150 million in revenue for that
county alone.
However, exposure to the arts does much more than expand the job
market. Support for the arts carries over into the classroom and the
workplace. Recent studies have shown higher SAT scores among high
school students with an art background and stronger math skills among
children who study music at an early age.
Perhaps more important are the analytic and creative skills developed
through involvement with the arts. These skills not only help children
excel in our classrooms, but help adults excel in the workplace. Think
of your own office. Just as we in Congress expect innovative thinking
from our staff, all industry relies on resourceful and imaginative
workers to remain strong.
The arts have the potential to enrich the lives of all Americans.
Without our support, they may simply become the privilege of an urban
elite. I urge my colleagues to consider the many benefits of the arts.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Appropriations Subcommittee on
Interior will receive testimony on fiscal year 1998 appropriations for
the National Endowment for the Arts. These are very important
deliberations. I believe they will provide a very important barometer
as to whether the 105th Congress will return this body to a course of
bipartisan sanity and civility.
I believe those who pursued a strategy of defunding and dismantling
the NEA in the 104th Congress made a mistake. I believe those who
seized upon a few questionable grants to attempt to undo what has been
achieved in 31 years, with consistent bipartisan support, were
misguided. I hope that this Congress will reverse that course and
support the President's proposal to strengthen the NEA.
I believe efforts to defund the NEA in the 104th were bad public
policy. It was bad public policy because it was indiscriminate in its
effort to correct a perceived wrong. If indeed the peer panel review
system, in a few instances, made decisions of questionable taste with
regard to what the American people would want to support with public
funds, that was not a sufficient reason to reduce the NEA's
appropriation by nearly 40 percent.
When we reflect on what the arts mean to this society, I think we
will all see that supporting the NEA is something on which we should
all agree. We need to reflect on the power of the arts to bring the
many ingredients of the American melting pot, or as Marc Morial, the
mayor of New Orleans, recently called it, the American gumbo, together
in savory harmony.
This harmony is not always easy or obvious. Nevertheless, I can't
think of anything else that is more in the national interest than the
promotion of understanding and the exploration of the complexity of our
identity. As the agency best equipped and most directly tasked to
encourage the purposes of art, the NEA should be treated as a budgetary
priority, not as a budgetary luxury. The NEA should not be viewed as
expendable because it is, in fact, essential.
Do we really want to jeopardize programs like the Mosaic Youth
Theater of Detroit, an afterschool program that develops young theater
talent in a multicultural setting? Through this program young people
receive movement and voice training. They are instructed in
scriptwriting and technical production. They create original works and
apply what they have learned in performances at community centers,
hospitals, and nursing homes. Through a 1-week residency at a college
campus, these youth are exposed to university life. I submit to you
that this program is far more typical of what the NEA supports than the
handful of grants that were used to shock the 104th Congress into
reducing support for that agency.
The American people have made it clear that they want change, and
that they expect this change to spring from bipartisan efforts.
Americans want thoughtful change. In the 104th Congress, NEA funding
came under indiscriminate attack. Fortunately, these attacks were
moderated, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the
105th Congress to further show our support for the arts.
As a result of NEA funding cuts in the 104th Congress, my district,
the 14th District of Michigan, received exactly zero in direct funds
for fiscal year 1996. NEA funding for Michigan went from $697,000 in
fiscal year 1995 to $520,000 in fiscal year 1996, a reduction of 25
percent. By the way, these levels of funding demonstrate just how
specious the budget-busting argument is when applied to the NEA. One
needs the most powerful of electron microscopes to find such amounts in
a Federal
[[Page H946]]
budget that has topped $1.5 trillion in the last several fiscal years.
As many of you know, I have had a longstanding and deep commitment to
American music, especially jazz. The downsizing of the NEA, dictated by
the 104th Congress, led to an elimination of the NEA's music program
and of all individual grants to jazz artists, with the exception of the
Jazz Masters Awards.
How does that sound? The world's greatest democracy eradicates its
music program? The world's greatest democracy eliminates funding for
individuals who travel the globe as cultural ambassadors, demonstrating
in their very art the superiority of the democratic form of government?
I would say it sounds like the Nation's leading arts agency was forced
to virtually abandon what the 100th Congress, in House Concurrent
Resolution 57, which ``designated as a rare and valuable national
American treasure * * *.''
I am sure that there are thousands of artists and creative workers of
all disciplines who feel similarly abandoned. I hope that the 105th
Congress will be remembered for many positive achievements, foremost
among them, the restoration and strengthening of the NEA.
____________________