A switch from a Republican to a Democrat in the Oval Office doesn’t necessarily mean more funding for the arts.

在过去的四十年里,全国养老for the Arts’ annual budget, which is set by Congress, took its biggest hits during Democratic administrations: when the culture wars over works by Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, Barbara DeGenevieve and the so-called “NEA Four” led Congress to reduce the endowment’s budget by more than 38% from 1995 to 1996, and then during the Obama administration, when the budget took a series of hits from a recent high of more than $167 million in 2010 to about $138 million in 2013.

Ralph Remington, the incoming director of cultural affairs at the San Francisco Arts Commission, worked at the NEA during that later period and remembers the cuts as motivated by the Tea Party, against the backdrop of the Great Recession.

But if a Biden administration in and of itself doesn’t guarantee a better-funded arts and culture industry, especially if the Democrats don’t retain their hold on Congress (the Democrats’ hold over Congress lasted only the first two years of Obama’s tenure), Remington and other arts advocates still see causes for optimism: in the inclusion of the Save Our Stages Act in the latest stimulus bill; in eloquent and urgent calls for a secretary of arts and culture in the Cabinet (including anotable essayby Peter Marks of the Washington Post) and a new Federal Theatre Project (including aletterby “Slave Play” playwright Jeremy O. Harris to the Biden transition team).

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Julie Baker,executive director of advocacy organization Californians for the Arts, is also encouraged by the mere fact that Biden’s transition team includes an arts and humanities wing, which his predecessors lacked.

But first, some context: the NEA’s budget is minuscule, unable to support more than a fraction of the art in this country. It constitutes about 0.003% of the federal budget — a “rounding error,” says Remington, not just in the budget as a whole but also for other departments. (One F-35 fighter jet, by contrast, cost about $89.2 million to build in 2018,according tothe New York Times).

Remington says the federal government could easily increase funding for arts and culture.

“It would not have a detrimental impact on the budget even if they doubled it,” he says.“I personally was working with no more than 5 to 7 million dollars to fund the entire field of the American theater.”By contrast, the pre-pandemic budget of San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, just one of the many theaters across the country, was $27.5 million. “That was the big shock: ‘Wow, this is all we get to fund the entire field?’ ”

Indeed, Baker says, “the fundamental thing that we know that we need is investment.”

“We’re systemically undercapitalized,” she continues,noting that state and federal arts funding are both under $1 per capita, though she appreciates that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent budget proposal allocates $25 million specifically for cultural institutions.

That’s why the$15 billion allocated in the Save Our Stages Act, which passed with bipartisan support, is seen as such a blockbuster achievement.

“We think (art) is mostly appreciated by Democrats or progressives, but what I’ve found is that all people really support the arts, on both sides of the aisle,” Remington says. “Where the NEA has been smart over the years, because of the culture wars that occurred in the ’90s, is that since that time, they made sure they gave money for the arts in every congressional district.”

That achievement might point a way forward, Baker says. “The silver lining of this last 10 months for the creative industry has been that we’ve not ever before seen so many people become engaged in advocacy for our sector.”

It’s not just numbers, but kind — no longer just the nonprofit side, which traditionally requires government support. Now, for-profit arts companies are also hurting and advocating. To be clear, the field was always interconnected. “Iwish someone could create the infographic of what the arts ecosystem truly looks like,” Baker says. But now, formerly siloed voices are making more unified calls to lawmakers. “When we silo, silo, silo, it’s so much easier to cut something that’s separated.”

“We’ve led with this concept that we are the creative economy,” Baker adds. “My personal opinion is that it separates us from the regular economy — whereas no, we’re integral to the U.S. economy.”

In one prevalent narrative, artists are a strange breed, existing on a separate stratum from the rest of society. In another not unrelated one, they offer mere light entertainment. The narrative Baker wants to put forth is that artists are “second responders.”

“We’re not running into a burning building pulling someone out, but we’re right there right as they come out and rebuilding a life and rebuilding a community,” she says. “That’s what the arts do.”

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