WASHINGTON POST: VERY CLEVER, BUT IS IT A STIMULUS?

(Left: Painter Jackson Pollock, artist backed early in his career by New Deal arts funds.)

Okay, fine. But what kind of art?

After a debate that carried a whiff of the Reagan- and Giuliani-era fights over government arts funding — remember the Virgin Mary daubed with elephant dung? — Congress inserted $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts into the stimulus package. Republicans cried elitism and boondogglery. But Democrats won with the argument that art can boost a sagging economy just the way building roads can…..

….”The money should be plowed into sacrilegious art, so that Christian groups can be offended and then hire a bunch of lawyers to sue somebody,” [ Rep. Jack Kingman, Georgia republican] said. Then First Amendment groups hire their own lawyers, and talk radio hosts on both sides sell more ads, he said. You see where this is going. “That would probably create more jobs,” he said, “than just a picture of . . . a ship at sea.”


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