Trump’s Budget Calls for Elimination of Funding for Arts, Public Broadcasting

President Donald Trump’s budget for the fiscal year 2018 calls for the eventual elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, a proposal that was expected and will likely lead to a furious round of lobbying to save the agency this summer.

The budget proposal calls for providing $29 million in funding “to conduct an orderly closeout of the agency beginning in fiscal year 2018.” That is just a fraction of the estimated $158 million outlay for the NEA this year.

Trump’s budget also calls for the elimination of funding for the NEA’s sister agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Also on the chopping block is funding for public TV and radio stations via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The CPB received an advanced appropriation for its 2018 fiscal year, but the White House budget calls for canceling much of its $445 million in funding. It requests just $30 million to conduct “an orderly closeout” of CPB funding.

That, too, was expected. Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters on Monday that the budget would call for the elimination of CPB funding.

Paula Kerger, the president and CEO of PBS, said in a statement, “Cutting federal funding for public media would result in a tremendous loss to our country that would be especially devastating for rural and underserved communities.”

Advocates for the arts and public broadcasting have expressed confidence that Congress will retain funding. A budget deal to fund the federal government through the end of the 2017 fiscal year preserved the agencies.

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