The Arizona Republic

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Would axing the NEA usher in the Artpocalyp­se? In a word, the answer is no. The National Endowment for the Arts, marked for eliminatio­n in the Trump administra­tion’s recent budget proposal, spent $148 million for 2016. That represents just 0.003 percent of the federal budget — and also a tiny fraction what museums, theater companies and dance troupes need to operate. No nonprofit arts organizati­on, large or small, depends solely on a federal subsidy to stay in business. And that’s by design. The NEA vets all applicants to make sure they have other sources of funding — that they are “going concerns” with proven viability — as do the state and regional agencies, such as the Arizona Commission on the Arts, that get 40 percent of the NEA’s grant funding to redistribu­te in every congressio­nal district in the country.

 ?? PHOTO ILLUSTRATI­ON BY RACHEL VAN BLANKENSHI­P/GANNETT;GETTY ?? KERRY LENGEL
PHOTO ILLUSTRATI­ON BY RACHEL VAN BLANKENSHI­P/GANNETT;GETTY KERRY LENGEL

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