Congress needs your creative input

Suddenly, change-course policies are a-borning all over the place. Interesting legislation of many kinds has finally got U.S Senate and House members struggling to address some of the most enormous and urgent issues facing the nation, and it’s clear that laws adopted now are going to have direct and probably immediate effects on whether or not the U.S. forcefully steers away from the brink of disaster or skids over the edge while pumping the brakes.

It feels as if we’re entering one of the greatest creative eras the country will have ever undergone - one, as in other times of great national crisis, in which we all have an active and measurable part in determining our own future.

We all need to pay attention, be informed and push for what we think will work best, so lawmakers will listen.  Here are a few of the most important bills to get familiar with:

American Clean Energy and Security Act, addressing global warming (and jobs); passed last week by the House, it’s now heading for the Senate 

Employee Free Choice Act , addressing business-managements’ anti-union tactics (and jobs), which may pass the Senate now that Democrat Al Franken has been officially declared the winner of Minnesota’s Senate race, giving his party the 60 votes needed to block a Republican filibuster 

Health bill, addressing health-insurance reform (and job benefits), is unnamed and still being constructed by members of Congress on committees including Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means. 

 Educate yourself. And then, whatever your position on these bills, call your Congress members and Senators – early and often.

Some facts about the arts’ effect on the economy

An interesting comment was posted here over the weekend. The writer said he used to work for a consulting firm that assisted the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1970s. He observed, “Bureaucratically funded arts endeavors remove dollars from the economy they [sic] do not add tax revenue directly.”

Wow. Where to begin? Well first, a little back story: On Friday, I posted a press release from the office of U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, stating that  the Congressman planned to hold hearings this spring on the economic and educational value of the arts. Miller’s staff has promised to forward to the Congressman some questions I e-mailed that afternoon in regard to these hearings; in the interim, I’m guessing that Miller’s decision to hold the hearings may be a reaction to the apparent elimination of some arts- and culture-related businesses from the list of those to be supported by the national stimulus package currently being considered by the U. S. Senate. Perhaps he’s interested in giving citizens, or at least his fellow elected officials, an accurate picture of the effects that arts have on learning and the economic health of communities.

But even if his intent is something completely different from that, the fact remains that the arts do have measurable effects on both education and the economy. 

Perhaps the commenter doesn’t realize that not all arts businesses are nonprofit. Broadway productions, the popular-music industry, most of the film industry, art galleries and auction houses, publishing houses, commercial and journalistic photography, graphic design - all these and more are for-profit, and immensely profitable they are, too.  

Perhaps he also doesn’t realize that even nonprofit arts organizations have a tremendous effect on local, regional and national economies through both direct and indirect economic impact. Like for-profits, nonprofits employ people and buy local services and products. They generate tourism, drawing visitors who not only buy tickets and paintings, but also pay for hotel rooms, parking, meals, drinks, souvenirs and other goods. Local residents buy many of those same things because of the arts; they also hire babysitters. 

In addition, excellent arts and cultural amenities help cities attract new businesses and help established businesses attract new employees.  

In the Cleveland area of Ohio, arts and culture generate over $1 billion annually in direct and indirect economic impact.  (Community Partnership for Arts and Culture, Northeast Ohio Arts and Culture Plan, May 2000). Nationally, they generate $166.2 billion in economic activity, support 5.7 million jobs and create $30 billion in government revenue – and that’s just the nonprofits. For every $1 billion of that arts and culture spending, nearly 70,000 full-time-equivalent jobs result. (Americans for the Arts, Economic Recovery & The Arts). 

(The Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit organization. Think it has no effect on the local – and national - economy?)      

 I won’t even go into the educational benefits of the arts here, but I hinted at the basics in my Feb. 5 post about ways that President Obama can promote American creativity.    

As the purpose of the national economic-stimulus package is not solely to generate tax revenue, anyway, but to help fund obvious economic sine qua nons such as education and to keep operational industries that employ people and provide needed products and services, I find it pretty bizarre of anyone to assert that arts and culture have no place in it.

It’s one of the most deeply ingrained and egregiously wrong myths of American society that the arts are a burden on the economy. The truth is that the arts are a large and vital part of the economy on all levels and that they enhance the educations on which our success as a nation ultimately depends.