Are you starting to hear the drum beats coming out of Washington?

Now is the time for arts advocates to mobilize with a strong and unified voice. Let'€™s get 50,000 messages to Congress over the next week.

The House Appropriations Committee has proposed a mid-year budget cut to dozens of valuable federal programs, including support for the arts. They want to cut the National Endowment for the Arts budget mid-stream from $167.5 million to $155 million.

The bill goes to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote next week. Unfortunately, this is where the battle really begins. I expect members of the Republican Study Committee to offer amendments that would cut even more money and quite possibly attempt to zero-out the NEA. Because this is serious threat, we are simultaneously working on a Senate and White House strategy of blocking any deep cuts to the arts.

Here'€™s what you can do:

1. Take two minutes now to send customizable messages to your Members of Congress via our E-Advocacy Center. These elected officials, especially the freshmen, need to know where their constituents stand on arts funding issues.
2. Be on the look-out for additional alerts next week. If we need even more messages to go to Congress about specific, fast-moving floor amendments to zero-out funding of the NEA, please please return to our E-Advocacy Center to let your voice be heard.
3. Follow us on Twitter (Americans4Arts) for insider information on budget decisions.

Now, let's make some noise of our own!

Vice President of Government and Public Affairs, Nina Ozlu Tunceli, recorded a podcast on ArtsBlog discussing the budget process and stresses how deeply important our voices will be during this time.