Currently, the National Endowment for the Arts provides over $100 million in grants to assist the arts. Also, during the Renaissance, leaders spent large sums of money on art. I believe this is wrong. Government should not be aiding the arts because it’s expensive, oftentimes with grants from the government they have requirements on how it can be spent, and nonprofits can easily make up for the loss of the federal grants. Firstly, aiding the arts costs a lot of money. The federal government spends over $140 million on grants (NEA Quick Facts, 2022). The size of the aid that the government is providing is larger than in the Renaissance, in fact, the National Endowment for the Arts is one of the largest arts programs in the world! The 180 million dollars that the endowment receives (NEA Quick Facts, 2022) could fund hundreds, if not thousands of high paying jobs, and could give more funding for other federal programs. Defunding the endowment could also lower the deficit as there would be less money spent. …show more content…
For example, education grants and housing grants can only be spent on education and housing respectively, and sometimes only on specific housing and education. The endowment does not give grants to book authors (GRANTS FOR ARTS PROJECTS: Unallowable Activities/Costs, n.d.), which cuts off a main part of the arts, and hurts creativity. It hurts creativity because books are another way to be creative. Also, employees, board members, and trustees of the organization cannot create the work to be done with the grant (GRANTS FOR ARTS PROJECTS: Unallowable Activities/Costs, n.d.). This also hurts creativity because these members may have a different outlook on art, and could be more creative than other people. When leaders in the Renaissance funded the arts, it was to beautify the cities, and there were not any restrictions that have been mentioned