Obama's call to arts

Many cash-strapped communities are eyeing the Artists Corps as one new opportunity during the tough times ahead. "We may all have to come up with fresh ideas about how to do the things we want to do," Burrows adds.

Three time zones to the east, the nation's largest community arts educational institution, Settlement Music School, serves 15,000 students on six campuses near Philadelphia and New Jersey. Seven percent of its nearly $9 million budget comes from the public sector, says director Robert Capanna. But the relationship sends a strong message. "It functions like seed money," says Mr. Capanna, "which galvanizes the donor community and sends a message about values and priorities."

As public schools have cut their arts budgets, he says arts groups across the country find the demand for their services to be nearly insatiable. The nation faces grave challenges but "the arts can be part of the solution," he says, adding that creativity and innovation are the key to the nation's future competitiveness.

Arts advocates are quick to point out that support for the arts is sound fiscal policy. Federal tax revenues generated by the activities of the not-for-profit arts sector alone total nearly $12 billion annually, says Robert Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. That figure is in addition to the for-profit multibillion dollar entertainment industries which are some of the nation's most important exports, he adds. Mr. Lynch was part of the advisory board that helped draft the initial arts platform during the primaries. Candidate Obama was the only contender who expanded upon the basic outline his working group provided, he says.

"Obama took the idea and built on it, coming up with the idea of the Artists Corps," adds Lynch.

There are many tools to help the arts within a potential stimulus package, points out arts analyst Roland Kushner, assistant professor of business at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. When the General Services Administration contracts for a new building, for instance, it can allocate money for public art. Funding for arts comes under Congress's discretionary monies, he points out, and while federal support for arts and culture has remained steady at roughly $2 billion over the past decade (this allocation includes the NEA, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting), it has shrunk drastically as an overall percentage of the budget, which has grown.

Perhaps the most effective role Obama can play in the immediate future is to mount the bully pulpit and lead by example. "Take Malia and Sasha to the museum," says Mr. Kushner, "or show them having music lessons in the White House."

• To view the platform, go to www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/additional/Obama_FactSheet_Arts.pdf

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