Kay Bailey Hutchison: “My amendment leaves the amount for the commitment to the arts at the same level as the committee bill does. It does…”

“My amendment leaves the amount for the commitment to the arts at the same level as the committee bill does. It does, however, make some reforms that I think will improve the NEA and most certainly will improve the commitment to the arts and reconfirm the commitment to arts that we have. It cuts the administrative costs of the NEA to 5 percent. I think, since the large part of the bill will require block granting to the States, that the administration does not need to be $17 million. I think $5 million then would be quite adequate to administer the national part of the bill. The Federal grants to national groups would be 20 percent of the total grant. In the Federal grants, we have a requirement for State matching funds, which I think is a healthy thing for us to require, so that any project that is funded with national dollars will also have a State commitment. Grants may not be used for obscene works, and they will go for groups and institutions. The rest of the money, the 75 percent, would be grants to the States so that the each State or territory is guaranteed at least what they had in 1997. And, in fact, every State, except California and New York, would get more funding for their arts commissions than they had last year.”