1) those who support arts, artists and arts funding
    2) the other kind

The strongest arts supporters in congress are members of the "congressional arts causus."

Of the Other Kind, some have been quite vocal in their dissing of artists. Others have said little or nothing yet cast their poisonous congressional votes to eliminate your way of life whenever the opportunity arises such as when a congressman introduces a bill to eliminate the NEA as happens every couple years.

All great nations subsidize their arts in order to maintain and raise an appreciation level among the public that is higher than the lowest common  denominator can provide in the commercial sphere. America does it on a small scale through the NEA. Norway typically provides more funding just for music than the USA provides for the entire NEA (all arts).

Even if you yourself do not get arts grants personally, the money that comes to some other organization might help provide work you. If more money flows through the arts channels, there is more money available for you to get a part of. If the money stream is turned off, then all you "starving artists" have to "compete" with each other for peanuts. It is government, senators & congressmen, who determines how big those money rivers are. Compare that to the "defense industry." Millions of scientists, engineers and technology people have good paying jobs BECAUSE American government channels nearly $630 billion down the military and weapons, science -technology -engineer pipeline. Consider this: the National Science Foundation gets $6 Billion a year. The National Endowment for the Arts gets less than $200 million!

It is true that there were "scandals" concerning some NEA "art" in a couple years of the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, those ended up largely blown way out of proportion and lied about by certain congressmen and right-wing Christian extremists who sought to exploit them as a way to destroy arts funding for all artists rather than simply clean up a problem. In the past two years, there have been more and far worse disgusting "pornographic scandels" among the real lives of governors and congressmen/senators than there ever were in the NEA art flack. Yet some of those political figures are still getting tax funded salaries and pensions! Why should you have to pay for that?

In general, during 2009-2010, most republicans have been anti-arts. Most tried to scuttle the arts even while they were giving the first 700 billion dollar bailout to wall street bankers during the last couple months of the George W. Bush presidency. Most democrats are arts-friendly. But there is a group of  so-called "conservative" democrats who call themselves "blue dogs" who are republican-like.  Most of them are anti-arts and most of them attempt to eliminate any and all federal funding toward the arts and artists. Many "conservative Christian" political groups still rant about "pornographic art" even though that scandal was over 20 years ago. Recently new group of "anti-elitist, anti-arts, anti-intelligence, anti-government good ol' folks types" have emerged who call themselves "teabaggers," The Tea Party, and "Real Americans." While they attempt to pass themselves off as a grass roots movement to "take back the country," they have actually been funded, whipped up by a few industrial billionaires with too much time on their hands and too many dreams of total control. They're all too eager to vote against anyone who supports the arts.

Americans For The Arts is presently your friend. Congressmen respond to industry advisory organizations (called "lobbyists") and pressure groups (called "political action committees"). Forget about whether such things are good or bad; they are either on your side or the other side. American For The Arts does the work of separating out who is doing what in Washington that affects you, saving you the time of having to do that yourself. The list below was provided by Americans for the Arts.

Americans For The Arts is presently your friend. This organization of knowledgeable arts lovers are your watch dogs in Washington D.C., working on behalf of artists and their organizations and also alerting you when congressmen attempt to do you harm. As a example, when republicans tom coburn (OK), john boehner (OH), mike pence (IN), cliffie sterns (FL), michelle bachmann (MN) and others like them attempted to keep artists from getting their $50 million bailout, Americans for the Arts sounded the alarm so that many people wrote to or called their congressmen and senators to save the arts. Artists responded by making their voices heard in great numbers and the $50 million for the arts was left in the bailout. The message to me when I observed that was simple.  Band together with other artists and make congress hear you. Help American For The Arts help you!

whether they voted YES to an increase of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts or

whether they voted NO to not allow the increase.

Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations
Increase to NEA and NEH Funding for FY2010
10/29/2009 --