NYC museums free entrance on inauguration day...

[marylander1940]

http://ny.curbed.com/maps/nyc-free-museum-inauguration-day

[+ purplekow]

With a possible loss of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the art community and museums may be forced to downsize or close.

[BSR]

With a possible loss of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the art community and museums may be forced to downsize or close.

Wow, that's the most dubious claim I've heard in a while. In the U.S. in 2013 (latest year I could find data for), private donations to arts amounted to $13.38 billion while federal funding for the NEA is a bit less than $150 million, barely more than 1% of total arts funding. When you take into account that 19% of the NEA budget goes to administrative costs (unusually high for a federal agency), then the federal government funds less than 1% of the total budget for the arts in America. Opponents to the NEA argue that whatever funding the arts lose as the result of eliminating the NEA will be more than balanced out by increased private donations. Indeed, during the period from 1991-97, the NEA budget was reduced from $170 million to $99.5 million, a drop of more than 40%. During that period, arts organizations used the NEA budget cuts as a plea to their donors to give more. They did, also by about 40%, but here's the great news: private donations, about $6.5. billion in 1991, jumped ~40% to almost $10 billion in 1997. With the power of the Internet, even individual artists and small arts organizations can raise private funding by means of crowd-funding sites. The arts in America will do just fine without the NEA. I think they might even do better. Demonize Donald Trump, vilify those Republicans/conservatives/Tea Partyers, and watch the donations pour in.