Alyssa Rosenberg: “Anyone who pretends that this is a particularly meaningful amount of money and that getting rid of it would be a serious step toward shrinking the federal government is trying very, very hard to delude the public. And targeting the arts is a particularly contemptuous, deceptive gesture because the Republicans who periodically propose it often suggest that the only people who care about the arts are elitist coastal liberals … But one of the things [the NEA, NEH and CPB] do is bring the arts and humanities to areas that don’t have big museums or lots of wealthy patrons.”