Newt Gingrich: “I think the direction that the Ehlers amendment is taking us is the right direction. Clearly, this is a new approach and…”

“I think the direction that the Ehlers amendment is taking us is the right direction. Clearly, this is a new approach and a new way of funding the arts at the Federal level. It indicates our commitment to making sure that at local levels, local communities and the States have resources for funding. Our goal is to get funding to the States to have a mechanism for the States to be able to help fund the arts in an appropriate way under local leadership. If one talks to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], who I think is a very reasonable and a very responsible person, he will advise that as recently as this year he tried to get information out of the NEA, defending certain films that they had granted, that he could not defend. He could not defend why taxpayers were paying for them. He could not understand what was the point of certain types of gratuitous pornography and gratuitous violence in a way that made no sense.”