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President Trump's first budget blueprint is calling for the elimination of federal funding to a host of arts and humanities programs, as the new administration seeks to redirect taxpayer dollars to defense.
The blueprint released by the White House “proposes to eliminate funding” for: the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which sends some money to PBS and National Public Radio.
Federal funding of arts programs, including money for public radio and television, has been the target of Republican administrations and congressional budget hawks for decades.
Mitt Romney said during his 2012 presidential campaign that the test of a program’s value was whether it was “so critical that it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it."
Supporters of public funding of the arts have fought out challenges for years, but this year could be different with Republicans controlling the budgetary levers at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue
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“The president finally got to the point where he said, 'do I really want to make the coal miner in West Virginia, or the auto worker in Ohio, or the single mom in Detroit to pay for the National Endowment of the Arts or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?' And the answer is no,” White House budget Director Mike Mulvaney said Thursday during an appearance on "Fox & Friends."