Joe Pitts: “some people think that conservatives hate the arts. They think that, because we oppose Federal subsidies for the arts…”

“some people think that conservatives hate the arts. They think that, because we oppose Federal subsidies for the arts, that we are uncultured dolts who do not appreciate the finer things in life. Let me try to correct the record, Mr. Chairman. The arts are an essential part of our culture. I love the arts. I love art in many forms. In fact, I am an amateur artist myself. I do not want this to be a show-and-tell session, but let me just illustrate. Here is a print of an oil I did last year of an area in my district called the Brandywine Valley. Here is a little sculpture that I do for volunteers who donate for people helping in my campaign. My daughter is an artist. We have a show at this present time in Lancaster County at an art gallery there. We have never received one red cent. There are millions of amateur artists out there who do not get any kind of funding. Mr. Chairman, in fact, there is no correlation between NEA funding and the state of the arts in America. The arts are flourishing in America today. It is not because they are subsidized. Although NEA funding has gone down as much as 40 percent in the past few years, there are more people working in the arts today than ever before. Employment in the arts is growing three and a half times faster than general employment at a time when we reduced NEA funding by millions of dollars.”