A single pack of gum

Talk all you want about supply and demand, at least we have a National Endowment for the Arts. For now.

If you haven’t read this post by Frank Rizzo at the Hartford Courant about tomorrow’s proposal for cutting the NEA budget, go check it out. I suppose the good news is, there’d still be an NEA budget to cut from.

But.

We have Brian Seitel to thank for this easy-to-grasp breakdown of how the NEA’s current budget compares to our own real life budgets. Not only that, he’s also compared the average return on investment (ROI) on money spent on the arts compared to money spent in the stock market. It’s so simple, a child could understand this. (I know, I tested it on my own kids.)

Share this post with your Senators and Representatives at every level.

And if you do, ask them if they’d be happy with a single pack of gum each year.

Click to embiggen.

UPDATE: Of course, it’s not just the federal government. Check out this post by Tom Jacobs about the perilous state of state arts agencies.

Are you curious about what percentage of your own state’s budget goes to the arts? Use this handy state budget calculator to find out.

Can we really afford to cut funding for the arts?

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Tip of the hat to Brian for finding the calculator, too. We also have Brian to thank for Talkbackr and OffBook Market.