Political Quotes

“I want to bring back a chart that we looked at just a few minutes ago and have kind of a little different perspective on what we were doing. The gentlewoman from New Jersey just mentioned some of the reforms. When we go down this chart of NEA reforms, the gentleman from Florida and the gentleman from Illinois who have been fighting this fight for dozens of years, and other people in this conference, trying to highlight the abuses of this program, I think here are some dividends that have been paid. There is a $400,000 grant in Kansas in March of 1997, a review of that art project. It was called 'Santa's Workshop' and it had Santa Claus masturbating. But the people who have the courage to come up here and say that this is not a proper thing to spend taxpayer money on, and have highlighted the abuse and the way the NEA is run, should be proud that we have made progress. That $400,000 grant to produce art showing Santa masturbating is more money than the entire arts agencies in Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and all the U.S. territories received combined.”