[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 95 (Tuesday, July 8, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H4845]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 IT IS TIME FOR THE NEA TO SAY GOODBYE

  (Mr. CHABOT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, the White House has been sending signals 
that the President will veto the Interior appropriations bill if the 
National Endowment for the Arts is phased out. The NEA, my colleagues 
will remember, is that bureaucratically bloated $100 million-per-year 
Federal agency that purports to decide what does or does not constitute 
quality taxpayer-funded art.
  Can the Republic survive without government art? I think it probably 
can, but the President apparently does not. He feels so strongly about 
this pet program that in order to save it he is willing to jeopardize 
the funding of such Federal entities as the National Park Service, the 
Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center and the Holocaust Museum, all funded in 
the Interior bill.
  Mr. Speaker, let us not create a legislative log jam to satisfy the 
elite special interests in the arts community. Let us say goodbye to 
the NEA once and for all, and let us hope that President Clinton does 
not stand in the way.

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