It’s always laughable when Republicans try to demonstrate how serious they are about cutting spending by going after the relatively minuscule budgets of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But it’s also a reminder that what Republicans oppose isn’t all funding for the arts — it’s just funding for some kinds of projects.
Among the things included in the defense spending that until the debt ceiling deal was such a sacred cow? Support for a wide array of military groups and the United States Armed Forces School of Music, which essentially represents the direct purchase of art by the U.S. government. I’m sure there are good arguments to be made for the existence of these musical groups, including unit cohesion and service pride, preservation of musical traditions, and really awesome covers of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”:
But if you don’t think government should support the arts, it probably shouldn’t matter if the artists are servicemembers or starving.
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