[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 31, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H4134-H4135]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    BUDGET DECIDES AMONG PRIORITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. YARMUTH. Madam Speaker, this week the House will consider the 
budget resolution for fiscal year 2010. As with any budget, whether it 
is a household budget or the U.S. Government, the process involves 
deciding among priorities. And in the case of the Federal Government, 
it is deciding among priorities, all of which have legitimate public 
benefits.
  Last week, the Budget Committee marked up the resolution. One of the 
amendments offered by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
proposed one of those decisions. Mr. Hensarling and Mr. McHenry 
proposed to strip $50 million of funding for the National Endowment for 
the Arts and direct those funds to be spent for veterans' health care 
facilities. I applaud them very much for their interest in veterans' 
health care.
  And I am happy to remind them and everyone else who is watching that 
over the past 3 years, the Democratic Congress increased funding for 
veterans' health care by $17 billion. And that is following 6 years 
under their party's rule where the number of vets actually receiving 
care declined.

                              {time}  1100

  Unfortunately, the debate on their amendment the other night left a 
lot to be desired as it actually became an opportunity for somebody to 
take cheap shots at arts funding that are not borne out by logic or 
facts. We just heard a little earlier the gentleman from South Carolina 
say arts funding is wasteful spending. Well, this day by fortuitous 
coincidence is Arts Advocacy Day, and I'd like to make the case for NEA 
funding, because, although that amendment was defeated in the Budget 
Committee, it may rear its head this week as well.
  Mr. Hensarling supported his amendment by juxtaposing the health care 
needs of one of his constituents, a legitimate American military hero 
from Palestine, Texas, against funding for the arts. He implied that he 
didn't represent constituents who would benefit from arts funding. 
Well, I represent some legitimate American heroes as well, but I also 
represent Actors Theater of Louisville, a world-renowned institution; 
the Louisville Ballet; the Louisville Orchestra; the Kentucky

[[Page H4135]]

Opera and dozens of other arts groups; 7,700 employees of arts groups; 
and 1,500 arts-related businesses. I represent Ken von Roenn, a glass 
artist whose work decorates Reagan National Airport. He created an 
institution called Glassworks which has brought hundreds and thousands 
of people to Louisville, made it a national center for glass art and 
has provided a great economic generator in Louisville.
  In total, the arts contribute in my district alone more than $250 
million annually, including $100 million on arts-related spending like 
restaurants and hotels and so forth. All told last year, 5 million 
people attended arts events and cultural events in my district and they 
paid $5.6 million in local taxes.
  Now I don't know a lot about Mr. Hensarling's district or Mr. 
McHenry's district, but I do know this: I know in Mr. Hensarling's 
district there are 1,317 arts businesses employing 3,229 people. The 
economic impact of the arts in Dallas, which he represents part of, was 
$550 million in 2006. In Mr. McHenry's district there are 947 arts-
related business employing 3,043 people. In North Carolina, there are 
17,000 businesses employing 159,000 people. Nationally, the impact of 
the arts is $166 billion, 5.7 million jobs, $104 billion in household 
income, $7.9 billion in local taxes, $9.1 billion in State taxes and 
$12.6 billion in Federal taxes. Now somebody may say that that's not an 
economic benefit, but I believe the facts are contrary to that. And 
listen to what the Chicago Tribune wrote in an editorial back in 
February talking about the stimulus funding for the arts:
  After all, the argument that the labor-intensive arts are not job-
creation engines is patently absurd; they just fuel different kinds of 
struggling workers, workers unaccustomed to bonuses. Their role in 
generating billions of dollars in ancillary economic activity for 
stores, restaurants and the travel business has been proven in 
bucketloads of surveys and analyses.
  Let's think about the arts funding in another way. Fifty million 
dollars as a percentage of this year's budget is one seventy-
thousandths of the budget. For someone who's trying to decide how to 
spend $35,000 in annual income, their personal budget, it's 50 cents. 
That's the equivalent amount. I don't know one American probably who 
hasn't bought a CD, hasn't gone to a movie, hasn't gone to a concert or 
gone to a play and spent a lot more than 50 cents.
  Mr. Hensarling offered the contrast of one piece of sculpture--a 
selective one at that--to a veterans clinic, but I would offer another 
picture: a picture of an F-22 jet fighter, $143 million for one jet 
fighter plane.
  This is about priorities and the arts are an important priority for 
this country.

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