Jones Blasts Proposed Increase In NEA Funding

Washington, D.C.- Third District Representative Walter B. Jones today responded to President George W. Bush's desire to increase funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This afternoon, First Lady Laura Bush will officially announce the Bush Administration's plan to provide an additional $18 million to the NEA's budget in the coming fiscal year. Congressman Jones joined other colleagues in speaking against the increase today, calling it a fiscally irresponsible decision.

"The Federal Government is now over $7 Trillion in debt. We are on track to add an additional $500 Billion to that debt in this year alone. The people who elected the Republican majority in Congress expect us to reign in spending, not expand it. At a time when our nation desperately needs to get it's fiscal house in order, programs like the NEA need to be eliminated - not expanded. There is simply no fiscally responsible case to be made for this further expansion of government.

When I came to Congress in 1995, I was part of the conservative majority that helped to finally reduce NEA funding, a program that supports projects that are often of debatable merit. However in recent years the NEA has joined a litany of other new and expanding programs and entitlements, all seeing their budgets grow faster than the incomes of the working people who are being taxed to support them.

This nation is fast approaching a financial day of reckoning, and the American people expect the party of Ronald Reagan to put the country's financial house in order - not propose new spending that makes the situation even worse. I joined the Republican Party to fight the massive expansion of the federal government, and I will fight this proposed expansion as well."