[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 60 (Thursday, April 29, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E824-E825]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              NEA FUNDING

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                            HON. RON PACKARD

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 29, 1999

  Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Speaker, I read an article last week in the 
Washington Times, outlining a recent grant from the National Endowment 
for the Arts for a film which chronicles the sexual exploits of two 
seventeen year old adolescent women. This grant sickens me and 
reaffirms the fact that we have no business wasting taxpayer dollars on 
the NEA.
  While many of the NEA funds go to tasteful projects, what greatly 
concerns me are the NEA grants given to projects that most taxpayers 
would fine inappropriate and repulsive. The recent grants described in 
the Washington Times article offers no educational purpose but succeeds 
in degrading women.
  Americans have a right to create and enjoy works of art that often 
span a variety of tastes. However, taxpayers should not be forced to 
support an agency which continues to use federal taxpayer funds to 
subsidize tasteless and sometimes offensive projects.
  Mr. Speaker, at a time when our country is experiencing a trillion 
dollar debt, can't the money we waste on the NEA be better spent saving 
Social Security, cutting taxes and strengthening our military? The fact 
is, as elected officials we owe a responsibility to the American 
taxpayer. Funding the NEA is reneging on that responsibility.

NEA Grants Include Funds for Films on Female Sexuality--Previous Award 
                           Drew Fire on Hill

                            (By Julia Duin)

       The National Endowment for the Arts announced $58 million 
     in new grants yesterday,

[[Page E825]]

     including $12,000 to Women Make Movies, a New York 
     distributor that a Michigan congressman once likened to a 
     ``veritable taxpayer-funded peep show.''
       This latest grant is for ``Girls Like Us,'' a documentary 
     on the sexuality of girls growing up in the 1990s. It won the 
     1997 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury award for best 
     documentary.
       It is part of a package of four films. The others are 
     ``Jenny and Jenny,'' about two 17-year-olds in Israel; 
     ``Girls Still Dream,'' about women coming of age in Egypt; 
     and ``The Righteous Babes,'' about women in rock 'n roll.
       The money will go to produce a study guide for the films 
     and help market it to 100,000 U.S. secondary schools.
       ``It's a terrific organization. We're proud to be funding 
     them, and it's a terrific project,'' NEA spokeswoman Cherie 
     Simon said of Women Make Movies (WMM). ``[The documentary] 
     went through an extremely competitive process and was found 
     to be meritorious.''
       The film, which follows four teen-agers from south 
     Philadelphia ``deals superficially with sex and its 
     consequences,'' says a review in the Arizona Republic. ``Sex, 
     for the girls, is not about physical pleasure or desire, not 
     about love, not about social pressures. It's just something 
     teens do, they seem to say.''
       Although the grant is minuscule compared to much larger NEA 
     awards to orchestras, operas and ballets around the country, 
     it is symbolic of the arts agency's new confidence.
       Its fortunes were at a low ebb in 1997, when Rep. Peter 
     Heokstra, Michigan Republican, blasted WMM for its themes on 
     lesbians and children's sexuality. He was especially incensed 
     about a $31,500 grant for ``Watermelon Woman,'' an explicit 
     WMM film about black lesbians.
       House Republicans voted to kill all funding for the NEA in 
     the summer of 1997, but the agency's life was extended by the 
     Senate. Since then, NEA has acquired a new chairman, William 
     Ivey, and President Clinton recently proposed increasing its 
     budget by 53 percent.
       ``Rather than raise the red flag, why don't they let it lay 
     for a couple of years?'' Mr. Hoekstra said yesterday in 
     response to ``Girls Like Us.''the NEA doesn't care about what 
     Congress thinks.''
       He was more concerned, he said, about ``inequities'' in NEA 
     funding.
       ``They are posturing themselves as wanting to build a 
     better relationship with Congress, but [in 1998], 167 
     congressional districts received no grants,'' he said. ``If 
     you want to build some bridges and show you're at least 
     listening to what's a sizeable group in Congress, at least 
     start distributing the money more fairly.''
       The 600,000 people in his western Michigan district 
     ``didn't receive one dollar'' from the NEA, but in 1998, 
     ``New York got 14 percent of the money distributed,'' he 
     said, ``Now, New York doesn't have 14 percent of the 
     populations in America.''
       New York groups got large chunks of funding in the most 
     recent grant cycle, including $60,000 to the Dance Theater of 
     Harlem, $100,000 to the Metropolitan Opera, $150,000 to the 
     New York Philharmonic and $200,000 to the New York City 
     Ballet.
       In Washington, the Humanities Council got a $50,000 grant 
     for a project involving writers, and the Woolly Mammoth 
     Theatre Co. got $64,000 for a theater project with young 
     people and adults in the Shaw neighborhood.
       Other grants include $45,000 to the Fairfax County public 
     schools system for its plan to use its Arts in Elementary 
     Schools program at Mosby Woods Elementary as a model for 134 
     other county elementary schools.
       The Institute of Musical Traditions in Silver Spring 
     received $18,000 for an outreach program to low-income 
     schools and for its programs for traditional folk artist.
       Grants for $100,000 went to opera companies in Houston and 
     Los Angeles. The National Foundation for Jewish Culture in 
     New York got $100,000, as did the Nebraska Arts Council and 
     the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Fla.

     

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