Are the Humanities a Waste of Money?
Fox News and the National Taxpayers Union are wrong to search for wasteful government spending by kicking around in the “decimal dust” of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Over the last year or so, politicians of both parties have commanded taxpayers and future generations to provide billions and trillions of dollars to prop-up dying industries, fund a pork-tainted stimulus, and rescue reckless debtors and financial institutions from the consequences of their own actions. We are experiencing a massive, probably permanent expansion of the size and power of the federal government, all under the guise of addressing the financial crisis.
In response, we’ve seen the inchoate anxiety of the Tea Party movement, a sneering progressive retort about “teabaggers,” and juvenile battles between the executive branch and populist media entities. Of course, Capitol Hill hasn’t been any better.
There’s been precious little grown-up debate about what we are doing to ourselves and future generations. Instead, from all sides, we’re getting mutual demonization, cartoon duels, and mindless appeals to emotion (principally fear and loathing). I don’t see much of a sense of proportion or history anywhere.
Take this latest kerfuffle, for instance: Why, in this era of unprecedented thirteen-figure government spending, is a representative of the National Taxpayers Union taking time to swat six-figure gnats? Why is now the time for limited government proponents to attack the National Endowment for the Humanities?
As if the life of a college professor weren’t easy enough, millions of taxpayer dollars are going to fund monthlong vacations for sightseeing scholars in Europe and South America, part of the $144 million [sic] budget provided for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Government watchdogs say those trips are a waste of taxpayer money, and they’re not alone on an eye-popping list of NEH funding for projects…
“Everybody should be angry … that federal taxpayer dollars are being used on projects at a time when we have such bigger priorities, like getting the national debt under control,” said Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union.
“They’re being done with tax money we don’t have. We are mortgaging our future with projects people may never even see.”
You can read more examples of “shocking” NEH grants at the Fox News website, but I suggest viewing this video report from correspondent William La Jeunesse:
Reading and viewing these comments leaves me sad and deflated. I’m sure my liberal friends turned away with disgust at the first mention of “Fox News,” so I’ll address this post to people who are more likely to be skeptical about NEH grants.
From 2002 to 2009, I worked at the National Endowment for the Humanities as an appointee of President George W. Bush. I’ve seen how the grant process unfolds and I’ve read countless applications in detail. I’ve seen outstanding projects and hair-curlingly awful stuff. I don’t believe I was brainwashed by the career bureacrats at the NEH, nor do I have a connection with the agency now. I am well acquainted with all the flaws and dangers of government funding for scholarship, the arts, and culture.
After watching William La Jeunesse’s report, and looking at the supposedly horrible grants he cites, I see something very different.
Exploring the bloody history of China’s cultural revolution and the horrors of Soviet collectivization; studying the philosophy of Aristotle, sending scholars to unlock the mysteries of ancient archives abroad, helping schoolteachers enrich their knowledge… Are these really frivolous concerns?
The “vacations” played up in the report are summer seminars and institutes for college teachers and K-12 teachers. They are held (in the U.S. and abroad) at sites of great historical or cultural importance. The days are packed with lectures, research in archives, and exposure to multiple points of view. Surprisingly, the Fox News report didn’t mention lovely Hawaii as the destination for one such seminar–it’s an intensive workshop on the horrors of Pearl Harbor and World War II history. Not exactly a “vacation” no matter how lovely the climate. These summer programs exist to benefit the students who will learn from the teachers and professors who participate.
I wanted to throw something at the screen when William La Jeunesse mocked the “Rediscovering Afghanistan” initiative. Spending a couple million dollars to preserve, study, and educate people about the history and culture of Afghanistan is disgraceful only in its parsimony.
Frankly, I think the NEH, NEA, the State Department, and the Defense Department should all be doing much more along those lines. Ask a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom if the details of Afghan history and culture are NOT a life-and-death concern for Americans.
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Teachers are woefully unprepared, universities are cutting back on the liberal arts and humanities, momentarily fashionable theories burn through academic departments with the speed of clothing trends, media are in the midst of revolution, museums and libraries are struggling against long financial odds and changing audiences… in all this chaos, the (comparatively) modest grants made by the NEH are a conservation tool. They sustain the quiet, essential work of scholarship and teaching on life’s biggest questions.
The total annual budget of the NEH now stands at about $155 million [fiscal year '09]. In federal terms, that figure is “decimal dust,” as one Congressional staffer once put it to us. The idea that the NEH has anything to do with the federal budget deficit is ludicrous.
In the private sector, the NEH budget does not loom large. Harvard University’s endowment, even after its decimation by mismanagement and the economic collapse, churned out about $1.7 billion in FY09. Is there anything the NEH funds that couldn’t be handled by the private sector? Couldn’t universities and media companies step up? Of course… not that they do it much. In these cases, the NEH helps shine a spotlight on projects and institutions that aren’t receiving enough attention. Often, the private sector support follows NEH recognition.
[And... if Glenn Beck is truly outraged at the lack of outrage over White House spokesman Anita Dunn's morally obtuse praise for the murderous Chairman Mao, maybe he could fund the production and distribution of a scholarly documentary on the horrors of Mao's Cultural Revolution? I'm sure his salary would more than cover $700,000 in NEH funds.]
By design, NEH grants are usually supplements to existing streams of funding. They are one component in a vast system of cultural support from private and public sources. As Tyler Cowen writes in Good and Plenty: The Creative Success of Arts Funding in America, you can’t look at grants from the National Endowment for the Arts or the NEH outside the context of the total federal involvement in education and culture.
The review process is extremely rigorous at NEH. Even a $5,000 academic research stipend has to pass muster with the NEH staff, a panel of outside reviewers, a presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed National Council on the Humanites, and, finally, the Chairman of the NEH. Very, very few applicants end up getting grants. Last I checked, the acceptance rate at Harvard was more lax.
The fact is, most of the billions in taxpayer funds that go to professors, museums, and education programs never go through such screening. A lot of universities receive congressional earmarks. These are the giant federal checks that generate photo-ops and get senators’ names on buildings–millions upon millions of dollars with absolutely no examination or oversight.
Through the Department of Education, direct subsidies, scientific research grants, and guaranteed student loans, universities are among our nation’s biggest recipients of taxpayer cash. What they receive from the NEH is, once again, decimal dust.
I understand that opponents of big government spending are looking for examples of apparent abuse and absurdity to illustrate their broader points. Especially when people are jobless, tapped-out, and increasingly desperate, we should be paring down and stripping away wasteful public (and private) spending. I just don’t think the NEH is wasteful or frivolous. It is small government.
As someone who believes in the vital importance of the humanities, I’m depressed by this crude attack on NEH grants. As a member of the dwindling cadre of laissez faire proponents, I’m irritated that champions of smaller government are wasting their time demagoging about a tiny cultural agency when our current fiscal apocalypse threatens the livelihoods and freedoms of generations to come.
I submit that NEH grants are NOT wasteful. But, even if you think NEH grants are frivolous, complaining about them is like fretting over a spilled glass of water in the dining room of the Titanic.
Advocates for limited government shouldn’t invent causes for outrage when our ship of state is already listing in a sea of red ink.
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Update: The National Taxpayers Union has a blog post responding to me and reiterating their position:
Government was never intended to promote such studies and especially not by using citizens’ money. That money is counted with every dollar and cent spent, no matter how many zeros listed on the check. A thousand dollars is as important to protect as a trillion. To think otherwise is ludicrous.
If “we should be paring down and stripping away wasteful public spending,” how about starting with a simple deduction from the deficit with the NEH? Then the universities and media companies who have not stepped up to fund these “worthwhile” projects might actually do so.
Would universities, media comanies, and private philantropists fill the void of a defunded NEH? What do you think?
