Paying for Art

Columnist Isaac Butler examines the National Endowment for the Arts:

For the first time in a decade, a bipartisan consensus exists that the arts are a valuable part of our national heritage, culture and existence, and that the government has a place in funding them. In the 1990s, the question was: should the government be funding the arts? The question today is: is the government doing a good enough job?

The answer is no. The NEA is under-funded and almost comically hobbled by regulations put in place during prior controversies.