
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991                   TAG: 9103061112
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NEA BUDGET/ WHO'S THE WHITE HOUSE BLUENOSE?

DESPITE the Gulf War, America is not turning into a garrison state. The Pentagon is sticking to its plan to trim defense spending for the next few years. Meantime, federal outlays for the arts and humanities are on the way up.

The White House is asking Congress for increases in fiscal 1992 of 15 percent for the Smithsonian Institution, 16 percent for the National Gallery of Art, 5 percent for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and 4 percent for the Institute of Museum Services. The conspicuous exception is the National Endowment for the Arts. Its proposed budget would remain flat at $174 million.

Yes, that National Endowment for the Arts. The one that gained notoriety, and the enmity of politicians such as Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., when it supported work of artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano.

If there's a bluenose at work, it doesn't appear to be George Bush. In fiscal 1991, the president requested more money for the NEA than Congress gave it, and he did not seek the kind of restrictions on the agency's grants pursued by Helms and others. But the disparity in the 1992 figures implies that someone in the White House wants to punish the NEA.

Or maybe it means the executive branch doesn't want another fight with the GOP's right wing. Congress spent many hours in 1990 trying to approve funds for the agency without giving a green light to obscenity or sacrilege.

In fact, the law pertaining to the NEA all along has expressly ruled out grants for offensive art. But it's taken care to leave to others, such as the courts, what's obscene and what is sacrilege. Only a tiny fraction of NEA's grants have fallen under such a shadow.

Still Congress managed, through added conditions written into the law last year, to send the message to NEA - and to its panelists who choose among grant applicants - to, for pity's sake, use some discretion. The arts community was thrown into a swivet (among other things, over "censorship," not truly an issue). But not much has changed.

In a democracy, questions of accountability for use of taxpayer dollars are not trivial. But there's something in the monstrous federal budget to offend everyone. Like beauty, obscenity and sacrilege are in the eye of the beholder.

by CNB