Why We Need Not Pay For Art

One of the most wasteful uses of tax dollars comes in the form of art subsidies. I'm not talking about the hideous sculptures that stand outside of every government building in your state capital, or the pictures that building puts on its wall. I'm talking about the flat out subsidy to artists whose work is apparently so appalling that they can't sell it in the private market like most people must do in chosen profession.

Scalia recently spoke on the subject and noted the most basic of truisms:

"The First Amendment has not repealed the ancient rule of life, that he who pays the piper calls the tune," Scalia said.

Scalia's point was not to suggest that the government quit funding art. He is a Judge after all -- not a legislator. His point was only that if the government is going to pay for it, the government is entitled to have a say about its content. Just like when the government runs the schools.

Of course, since the art the government pays for isn't worth buying, one must seriously ask why you thought it was OK to send your kid to a government paid for school. But that is a post for a different day.

In the late 1980s, the National Endowment for the Arts sparked a public and political uproar when it helped fund exhibits of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's homoerotic images and a photograph by Andres Serrano of a crucifix immersed in urine.

Critics contended the NEA was financing obscenity, and Congress passed an arts-funding law in 1990 requiring public values be considered when handing out grants. The Supreme Court upheld that law in 1998, ruling that the government need not subsidize art it considers indecent. Justice David H. Souter was the only dissenter, saying the law was overbroad and had "a significant power to chill artistic production and display."

Scalia said Thursday he believes the government did not violate the First Amendment in the case of the Serrano photo — it did not pass any law to throw the "modern day DaVinci" into jail nor did it stop him from displaying his art, he said.

"I can truly understand the discomfort with government making artistic choices, but the only remedy is to get government out of funding," he told the audience.

Besides proving that Souter is a lousy justice, this opinion screams for the ending of our government waste for "art." Not only do we waste the money on the art itself, but we have to waste money on a law, and the enforcement beurocracy, to ensure that we aren't funding more pictures of fists and whips in private places and religious symbols in human waste.

I'm not suggesting that all government funded artists are not good artists. I just lack the ability to understand how a government can look its citizens in the eye and say that the artist was more entitled to your money than you were. You didn't get to spend that money on your retirement or health care or child's education. Instead, Maplethorpe, an accomplished artist in the private sector, got that money to photograph what could at best be called pornography?

There is no shortage of good art in this country. There is no shortage of self sufficient groups, theatres, museums and playhouses to provide it.

Is art important? Absolutely. And we know it is important when it is bought and paid for by willing buyers in a free exchange.

We know it isn't -- when it isn't.