On February 11, Robert Lynch, Americans for the Arts' CEO and President, co-authored a Letter to the Editor with arts advocate and award-winning actor Robert Redford on arts' potential to open doors for the less fortunate in response to an article pubished on February 4 by Patricia Cohen: N.E.A Benefits Both the Rich and the Poor, Study Finds.

This study, released by the National Endowment for the Arts (N.E.A) and the National Center for Arts Research at Southern Methodist University, contrasts the assertion made by the House Budget Committee last year, that the N.E.A and other Arts Agencies' activities are only for the rich, finding that every dollar of N.E.A. funding generates $9 of non-federal money to the arts, and the nonprofit arts industry generates 4.1 million jobs. Led by Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, the House Budget Committee issued a proposed budget for the 2014 fiscal year, which eliminated all funding for the arts endowment as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Read their response on ARTSBlog.

Photo: From Americans for the Arts' National Arts Policy Roundtable, Oct. 2012.