Submitted by WA Contents

Trump may eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities programs

United States Architecture News - Jan 23, 2017 - 16:18   11312 views

Trump may eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities programs

Donald Trump is planning to make dramatic cuts for some federal programs, which include The National Endowment for the Arts and The National Endowment for the Humanities as well as the departments of Transportation, Commerce and Energy, according to a report published by The Hill on Thursday.

The Hill's insider team noted that the departments of Commerce and Energy will get significant reductions on funding alongside the departments of Transportation, Justice and State will see major cuts or program eliminations. Even, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities may be entirely eliminated, which are the crucial funding programs for Art, Design and Architecture. 

The United States is one of the countries that supports fine arts to a certain extent comparing to other countries. These cultural organizations supported some initiatives under the other segments of 'Design', which include architecture, communications and graphic design, historic preservation, fashion design, industrial and product design, landscape architecture, interior design, planning, universal design, social impact/public interest/human centered design, rural design, and urban design.

AIA Conferences is one of the initiatives supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and other rubrics of the program include architecture competitions, designs and plans for new cultural buildings, architecture exhibitions, districts, neighborhoods, public spaces and landscapes; community workshops for design projects, neighborhood planning activities, residencies, socially-oriented design initiatives, adaptive reuse of historic buildings, historic and community preservation projects, conferences and symposia, educational initiatives and more can be seen from the NEA's website

The NEA funding also supports some architectural groups, foundations and organisations consisting of the American Architecture Foundation, Architecture for Humanity, the Architectural League of New York, the Association of Architecture Organizations, and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. 

Russ Vought, a former aide to Vice President-elect Mike Pence and the former executive director of the RSC, and John Gray, who previously worked for Pence, Sen have discussed the cuts at the White House budget office by preparing a 175-to-200 page document, which is expected to reach within 45 days to Trump's office.

The full-budget document includes appropriations language, supplementary materials and long-term analysis, which is expected to be released toward the end of Trump’s first 100 days in office, or by mid- to late April, according to the report.

The report claimed that the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years. ''Many of the specific cuts were included in the 2017 budget adopted by the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), a caucus that represents a majority of House Republicans. The RSC budget plan would reduce federal spending by $8.6 trillion over the next decade,'' mentioned in the report.

''Mick Mulvaney and his colleagues at the Republican Study Committee when they crafted budgets over the years, they were serious,'' said a former congressional aide. “Mulvaney didn’t take this OMB position to just mind the store.''

''He wants to make significant, fundamental changes to the structure of the president’s budget, and I expect him to do that with Vought and Gray putting the meat on the bones,'' the source added.

''The Trump Administration needs to reform and cut spending dramatically, and targeting waste like the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be a good first step in showing that the Trump Administration is serious about radically reforming the federal budget,'' said Brian Darling, a former aide to Paul and a former staffer at the Heritage Foundation.

This is not the first thought-provoking act with Trump Presidency, Trump recently increased taxes on a million middle-class homebuyers, reported by The Intercept.

Top image: Trump may eliminate The National Endowment for the Arts. Image courtesy Michael Vadon/Flickr

> via The Hill