No, Damnit NO!

WTF?!?!? This is a capitalist country. If your art is good enough to sell, you get paid for it. If it is not, then it is a hobby and go get a job that will pay you. Our President is not FDR, there should not be a Tennessee Valley Authority.

Bush Is Said to Seek More Money for Arts: WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 — President Bush will seek a big increase in the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts, the largest single source of support for the arts in the United States, administration officials said on Wednesday.

The proposal is part of a turnaround for the agency, which was once fighting for its life, attacked by some Republicans as a threat to the nation’s moral standards.

Laura Bush plans to announce the request on Thursday, in remarks intended to show the administration’s commitment to the arts, aides said.

Administration officials, including White House budget experts, said that Mr. Bush would propose an increase of $15 million to $20 million for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. That would be the largest rise in two decades and far more than the most recent increases, about $500,000 for 2003 and $5 million for this year.

We need to get rid of the NEA, get rid of the Department of Education. Department of Education? Why get rid of that? I’ll tell you why – look at what they do. Let’s take a look at the first part of each line in the mission statement:

• Strengthen the Federal commitment

• Supplement and complement the efforts of states …

• Encourage the increased involvement of …

• Promote improvements in the quality …

• Improve the coordination of Federal education program

• Improve the management of Federal education activities

• Increase the accountability of Federal education programs to the President, the Congress, and the public.

Now tell me, what do they actually do? Improve themselves to better promote and encourage and supplement the states, where education actually happens! That’s nice, but what do they DO. Take money from one state, spend a bunch of it on showing how important they are, make up some arbitrary guidelines, then give those guidelines and the rest of the money to another state. Forget that. Time to close shop and let the state’s decide for themselves how they want to educate the children.

The spending spree is too much, I HAVE to vote straight libertarian this election.

~ by kinshay on 2004-01-29.