On the subject of the arts, JLF President John Hood says taxpayers should not be “compelled to pay for the creation of art,” no matter what the so-called experts say:
Arts groups have concocted all sorts of preposterous arguments and economic “studies” to obscure this basic fact. For example, they hire an economist to count up all the tax money spent on the arts in a given community, the total budgets of arts organizations, and the number of people who receive income from those organizations directly or indirectly. Then they claim that the initial expenditure of tax money causes the total budgets, which then creates a certain number of jobs.
What a coincidence — the Winston-Salem Journal editorializes on such a study, which identifies the arts as ‘major industry, one that should be supported and celebrated throughout the city and county.’
Emphasis on ‘supported’—- no doubt the Journal defines ‘support’ as Cmdr. Hood does —-patrons paying for their own proverbial symphony ticket. And while the editorial doesn’t explicitly call for government funding of the arts, they otherwise wouldn’t editorialize on a study citing the economic impact of the arts.
All this should be taken into consideration should discussion and debate over a downtown Greensboro performing arts center extend into next year, which I boldly predicted would not be the case.
On a related note, the G’boro council should closely watch how the vote goes down in Wilmington, where the City Council voted to put a bond on the November ballot for a minor league baseball stadium.
