Headline of the Week  

House Transportation Committee Approves Bill Weakening Public Art Funding 

02-06-2012: The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed a bill last week that could weaken funding for public art. In this new legislation, items such as the establishment of transportation museums, historic preservation, and rehabilitation of historic transportation buildings are no longer eligible for funding in the Transportation Enhancements (TE) section of the bill. Also, the committee repealed the 10 percent set aside for the TE program, which means that those funds are no longer explicitly available for these activities. This bill will now be brought to the House floor, so contact your members of Congress now!

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Arts Advocacy Day/Appropriations

Arts Advocacy Day
On April 5, in conjunction with National Arts Advocacy Day and against the backdrop of a looming government shutdown, Americans for the Arts assembled a group of arts supporters to testify before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, encouraging Congress to maintain funding for the NEA at $167.5 million. With less than 24 hours notice, all planned hearings were postponed due to the whirlwind negotiations taking place on Capitol Hill to keep the government open, but more than 600 advocates from around the country gathered to hear the inspirational words of scheduled Subcommittee panelists Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, CEO Edgar Smith and Mayor Elizabeth Kautz at the Congressional Arts Kickoff before descending upon Congressional offices. The Kickoff featured remarks by Reps. John Lewis (D-GA), Mike Simpson (R-ID), Congressional Arts Caucus Co-Chair Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Jim Moran (D-VA), Denny Rehberg (R-MT) as well as other House Members and Congressional Arts Leadership-winner Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

FY 2011 Appropriations
In the months leading up to a final Fiscal Year 2011 (FY 11) agreement, the National Endowment for the Arts had been threatened by a series of legislative proposals that attempted to completely terminate the agency or severely reduce its FY10-enacted funding level of $167.5 million. During one budget deliberation, an amendment sponsored by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) narrowly passed by a vote of 217-209 in the House attempting to drastically reduce the NEA appropriation to $124 million. You can see how your House member voted on that amendment here. Fortunately, that particular House bill did not pass the Senate and never became law. Finally, after six months of stopgap measures known as Continuing Resolutions (CR’s), the House and Senate finally agreed to a long term agreement that wrapped up the FY11 appropriations cycle and narrowly avoided a government-wide shutdown in mid April 2011. Both the NEA and NEH, along with hundreds of other federal programs, saw their appropriations cut in that agreement from $167.5 million to $155 million.

FY 2012 Appropriations
The President’s Request for the NEA this year is for $146 million as Congress now works on their current fiscal year proposals.

Tax Issues

Charitable Deduction: As the Obama Administration and Congress wrestle with reviving the economy and addressing long term deficit reduction, tax treatment of certain exemptions and deductions have come into question as a means of increasing federal revenue such as the charitable deduction. The nonprofit sector is closely tracking charitable giving developments to ensure preservation of private giving incentives that potentially impact arts and culture. A recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study provided new data suggesting changes to the charitable deduction that could have a profound effect on the giving community. This is the first such study by the CBO which Congress relies heavily on to make informed policy decisions.

IRA Charitable Rollover: This provision permits donors age 70.5 and older to make tax-free charitable gifts directly from their IRAs to charities up to an annual ceiling of $100,000. This year, the lead co-sponsor of S. 557, the Public Good Charitable IRA Rollover Act of 2011, is Senator Charles Schumer. This particular piece of legislation makes the rollover provision permanent and removes the arbitrary age and monetary caps.

The Artist-Museum Partnership Act: H.R. 1190, reintroduced in the House this year by Reps. John Lewis (D-GA) and Congressional Arts Caucus Co-Chair Todd Platts (R-PA), allows artists to claim a full tax deduction for gifts of their own work. Without incentive to give their works to nonprofit institutions, creators generally sell their works to private collectors, and the public loses. The legislation remains popular, garnering strong bipartisan co-sponsorship in recent Congresses. Urge you House member to cosponsor.

Arts Education/ESEA

In April, the Arts in Education (AIE) programs at the United States Department of Education received $25.5 million in the long term CR budget deal that finalized FY11 appropriations. This partially restores funds that were stricken as part of an overall elimination of AIE in an earlier temporary CR bill.

On May 25, the House Education and Workforce Full Committee began their rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) by passing a piece of legislation (HR 1891) that targeted 43 federal education programs for elimination. The $40 million AIE program was one of those eliminated in the bill despite committee member’s attempts to retain funding for arts education activities through unsuccessful amendments. The AIE program is the only distinct arts education program directly funded by the federal government. As a core subject according to the original ESEA authorization, the proposed termination of this relatively modest program calls into question the future role of the federal government in ensuring that “a narrowing of the curriculum” does not continue; a common complaint about the last ESEA rewrite known as “No Child Left Behind.”  The bill is awaiting final House passage in the coming weeks and is only one of several pieces of legislation that will try and address the education reauthorization for the remainder of the year. The Senate is not expected to formally consider this legislation.  Urge your Member of Congress to support arts education.