Gov. Ron DeSantis gave no explanation for zeroing out the $32 million in grants that were approved by state lawmakers.
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Leaders of arts organizations in Florida, many of whom have worked in the state for decades, cannot remember a governor ever eliminating all of their grant funding. Even in the lean years of the Great Recession, at least a nominal amount — say, 5 percent of the recommended total — was approved.
Established arts organizations usually know better than to overly rely on nonrecurring state dollars subject to the discretion of politicians, said Michael Tomor, executive director of the Tampa Museum of Art. But to cut funding at a time when arts organizations are still struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic sends a concerning message “that taxpayer dollars should not be used in support of arts and culture,” he added.
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Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, gave no explanation for zeroing out the arts grants. His office said in a statement that he made veto decisions “that are in the best interests of the State of Florida.”
In all, Mr. DeSantis vetoed nearly $950 million in proposed spending and proclaimed that the remaining $116.5 billion came in under the previous year’s budget.
Why are the arts required to be done first, or at all? I’m not seeing it. They seem separate, and doable in any order.
That’s a fair question.
The arts are seen as a luxury and a frippery. They are also seen as elitist.
If you want to defund public services and remain popular, the playbook is to remove the arts first. That way you are demonstrating the order of needs.
to me having a funded arts curriculum is a sign of an fully developed/advanced education system. Of course you need the mandatory subjects for function like reading, math, science, etc. But to complete the full human experience you need subjects like history, music, art, philosophy, etc. You take those things away, it’s like removing a part of what makes being alive enjoyable, and also in parallel, the ability to express struggle in an an almost universal way. The education is no longer for thriving, but for surviving