Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. CICILLINE. In Congress, we have to, of course, responsibly cut spending, but at the same time we also have to make the necessary investments that create jobs now, guarantee the future strength of our economy, and renew the vitality of our communities. And that's why we should absolutely reject this effort to further reduce the investment, our Nation's investment, in the National Endowment for the Arts.

Our targeted Federal investment in the arts through the NEA is very modest and is really crucial to spurring the contributions of corporate and foundation partners through their support through philanthropy, sponsorships, and volunteerism that help to sustain and leverage arts investments in communities all across this country.

This investment in the arts becomes all the more important during a time when States and cities all across this country face greater and greater fiscal constraints and at the same time are searching for opportunities to leverage Federal dollars and to spur economic development and job creation.

I represent a State that has realized an extraordinary return on investments generated by the arts. In Rhode Island, the presence of the arts is really sown into the fabric of our communities and of our economy. According to recent data from Americans for the Arts, in just the First Congressional District, in my district alone, more than 1,400 arts-related businesses employ nearly 6,000 people, and that represents more than 5 percent of the businesses in my district.

As the former mayor of Providence, I've seen firsthand the economic impact of the arts and the power of art to transform people and places.

I know the benefits of the arts in enriching our communities and uniting them as well. Arts nourish our soul.

The United States Conference of Mayors sent a letter to Members of Congress urging us to protect funding in the arts and to reject this amendment, recognizing that arts create jobs and produce tax revenues, that arts put people to work, and that arts attract tourism revenue. Arts in the creative industries are an enormous part of what fuels our local economies, bringing hundreds of thousands of visitors to our cities, generating activity in restaurants, hotels, transportation, and hospitality services.

This activity not only strengthens the vitality of our communities, it generates revenues for State and local governments. Across our country, the arts industry provides much more than aesthetic benefits. It creates meaningful economic benefits and opportunities.

During this period of budget austerity, we shouldn't neglect those investments with a proven positive rate of return. We shouldn't siphon off the fuel that helps power the American arts industry, a sector of our economy comprised of more than 750,000 businesses, employing nearly 3 million people nationwide, and generating more than $166 billion in economic activity.

Cutting the National Endowment for the Arts undermines our responsibility to create jobs and grow our economy, and diminishes us as a Nation.

As one study demonstrates, when we consider the overall direct Federal cultural spending of $1.4 billion, we're achieving a return on investment that's nearly 9 to 1. If we're really serious about strengthening our economy, putting more Americans back to work, and reining in our deficit, then we have to be smart about our investments and about our reductions.

With estimates indicating that every dollar of Federal funds invested in the arts generates $9 in economic benefits, further reductions to the National Endowment of the Arts are counterproductive and, in fact, will move our Nation backwards. It moves us backwards not only in the effect that we lose the immediate economic return on the investments, but this cut also pushes our country further behind our competitors and the global economy.

It was one of the great giants of the United States Senate, the great and passionate leadership of Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, that led to the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965, the program that we're fighting to defend today. In 1963, Senator Pell opened hearings on preliminary legislation on this issue by stating, "I believe that this cause and its implementation has a worldwide application, for as our cultural life is enhanced and strengthened, so does it project itself into the world beyond our shores.

"Let us apply renewed energies to the very concepts we seek to advance, a true renaissance, the reawakening, the quickening, and above all, the unstunted growth of our cultural vitality.''

In those words Senator Pell said clearly that this disinvestment that we're discussing today for the National Endowment for the Arts nearly 50 years later is a stark and appalling contrast to the renaissance and reawakening embodied in the National Endowment for the Arts.

For too long, the arts have been the first target for spending cuts in our public schools and here at the Federal level. It is at our own economic peril that we continue to deprive our youth and our communities of their connection to the arts.

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Mr. CICILLINE. I thank the gentlewoman.

For too long the arts have been the first target for spending cuts in our public schools here at the Federal level. It is at our own economic peril that we continue to deprive our youth and our community of their connection to the arts. I have seen on so many occasions the power of music and dance and theater to ignite the imagination of a young person, that causes them to stay in school, to follow their passion, and ultimately to realize their dreams.

Today's global economy demands an even greater level of creativity, innovative thinking, and entrepreneurship, a 21st century skill set that is enhanced by exposure to the arts in learning and in daily life. I participated in an arts education roundtable with CEOs from all across the country who said that those skills of creative problem solving, of innovation, of entrepreneurship were skills they were looking for in the workers of the 21st century. And the arts nourishes and enhances those skills.

We cannot underestimate the importance of maintaining critical Federal funding for our arts to fuel our national economic recovery, to grow our local economies, to teach our children, and to expand our civic discourse during these trying economic times.

I strongly urge my colleagues to reject further reductions to the National Endowment for the Arts because now, more than ever, we need the National Endowment for the reawakening, quickening, and unstunted growth of not only our cultural vitality but of our economic prosperity as well.

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