[-empyre-] forwarding from David Byrne

[simon]

The Trump administration and their Republican allies hope to eliminate 
funding for a number of federal arts organizations. This is a political 
move—it really doesn’t amount to much money—it’s a tiny part of the 
federal budget. The amount of federal funding is $741 million, which 
sounds like a lot, but is less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the United 
States’ annual federal spending, an amount supporters say is too small 
to make a difference in the budget if it was cut. On a budget pie chart 
it doesn’t even show up, it’s too small.

Q: What does that “investment” get us as a nation?—A: It gets multiplied 
more than 100 times= $135.2 BILLION.

In 2013, the production of arts and cultural goods added more than $704 
billion to the U.S. economy. This amounts to 4.23% of GDP. The arts and 
cultural sector contribute more to the national economy than do the 
construction, agriculture, mining, utilities, and travel and tourism 
sectors.

- from http://davidbyrne.com/journal/what-good-are-the-arts