Congress Increased Funding to the Arts Last Night

Late last night, Congress passed a spending bill that averted a government shutdown (which Trump has now signed), and in greater news, they have allocated in said bill "an INCREASE in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to $152.849 million each." Americans for the Arts Action Fund has the final funding levels for all cultural agencies.

They are attributing the win to the late Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, and to the actions of activists:

• Grassroots arts advocates sent close to 200,000 messages to Members of Congress, thousands more signed our petitions and visited their elected Representatives and Senators.
• Our Arts Action Fund PAC was incredibly effective in educating and supporting key leaders in Congress to take an important stand on the arts.
• Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert (R-CA), soundly rejected President Trump's attempt to terminate our nation's cultural agencies.
• Persuasive and timely ads were placed in political publications during key decision times to inform Members of Congress about the latest research on the economic power of the arts.

Read on right here!