How the arts can nourish a struggling nation

WITH HIS Cabinet in place, President-elect Obama will turn his attention to the agencies and the countless appointments that will complete his new government. Although some appointments will be virtually unnoticed, they are no less instrumental in fulfilling his agenda of change. For example, who will replace Dana Gioia as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts? And what is the NEA again?

That Gioia's agency is little known is partially a reflection of the agency's modest allocation. The Endowment's annual budget is less than the Pentagon's cost for a single fighter plane. And for every per-capita dollar the NEA spends, France's Ministry of Culture spends more than $13,000.

Gioia was once asked why the US government doesn't support the arts the way Europe does. "The US provides more funding for the arts than any other country in the world . . ." Giolia replied. "It's called the tax deduction."

A tax deduction is not an arts policy.

Under the federal tax code, deductions are allowed for contributions made to charitable organizations. Individual and corporate support for the arts, incentivized by these tax deductions, is likely slow in a chilling economy. Arts organizations will compete for shrinking funds, insufficient to sustain them all. An opera company might skate by, relying on its endowment and longstanding donors, while a small Latino theater troupe or an inner-city music school would be forced into extinction.

But funding isn't the only problem. For 20 years the NEA has been in hibernation.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a handful of artists were accused of subverting American culture. Robert Mapplethorpe became the cause celebre, and so began the "culture wars." Social conservatives and fiscal watchdogs joined forces in an offensive against the arts. Their battle cry: Art was responsible for the decay of American values, and why should American tax dollars pay for it? Self-appointed censors like Jesse Helms and Pat Buchanan proposed disbanding the Endowment altogether. The agency survived but retreated, leaving American artists to fend for themselves.

The Endowment has stirred again during Gioia's tenure, having secured its first significant funding increase since 1984 - "American Masterpiece" was awarded $18 million to bring American classics to the far-reaching corners of 50 states as well as military bases. "Shakespeare in American Communities" was another Gioia initiative, and this year he launched "The Big Read," a $2.8 million nation-wide Oprah-style reading club.

But a reading club is not an arts policy, and Gioia's programs stop short in bringing the NEA back to life.

These programs do not reflect the arts as a vital and dynamic expression of American culture. They do not reflect the diverse face of America. These programs do not fuel the economic engine of American communities large and small. In this financial climate, that's an issue that deserves attention.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized the combined power of American productivity and creativity. Between 1935 and 1943, his Works Progress Administration put 8 million Americans to work. Under the same umbrella, construction workers and engineers built the nation's physical infrastructure, while writers, painters, and performers constructed the nation's cultural foundations. Buildings and bridges, murals and sculptures sprung up in public places around the nation.

It was John F. Kennedy whose commitment to the arts paved the way for the formation of the National Endowment. Kennedy's vision of an America in which ingenuity was championed above all else was not reserved to space travel alone. The arts were included too: "If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him."

Obama's campaign planted the seeds of change. As he builds his administration, he should follow in the footsteps of Roosevelt and Kennedy, considering the unique and historic role that the arts have always played in cultivating change. He should select a new chairperson who will lead the NEA with a commitment to the ways in which the arts can nourish the nation's economy and its imagination. Book clubs and tax deductions can play their part, but it is visionary arts policy that must awaken the potential of American creativity, restoring relevance to American artists.

Thor Steingraber is an opera director and Harvard University's Hauser Center fellow for arts, culture, and media.