Friday, February 11, 2011
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.