I received an email yesterday from the splendid little literary-political journal N+1, which I write for from time to time, informing me that its $12,500 NEA grant had been canceled. It was among the 30-plus small literary publishers—among 51 awardees this cycle—that had their grants clawed back. And that’s just literary publishing.
The National Endowment for the Arts gets about $200 million a year, or .003 percent of the federal budget. The grants it awards usually run in the low five figures. By contrast, Trump’s proposed budget increases military spending to a trillion dollars—that’s 13 figures. To put it in another context, N+1’s grant would not cover a week’s stay at the cottage Elon Musk rents at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate the NEA altogether, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, whose grants were also rescinded this winter. On May 1, he issued an executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease funding PBS and NPR, which he does not have the legal power to do.
While the NEA lives, according to the emails sent to the hundreds of summarily axed arts organizations, the endowment would focus on the president’s “agenda.”
Among these are projects that “foster A.I. competency” (and enrich Elon Musk); “empower houses of worship to serve communities” (fund Trump’s Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias); “assist with disaster recovery” (replace FEMA’s $23.7 trillion in current obligations, which would be wiped out if the administration succeeds in eliminating the agency); “foster skilled trade jobs” (after cuts of $183 million to Department of Labor workforce programs), “make America healthy again” (but never mind measles); “support the military and veterans” (sorely needed, since Trump intends to fire 80,000 VA employees); and “support Tribal communities” (after rescinding 18 Biden EOs extending tribal national sovereignty and facilitating federal aid).
If the NEA survives, each of these projects will receive a grant of up to $12,500, which will subsequently be canceled.