What the Arts Can Learn From NASA Budget Cuts

By David J. Hahn
New York, NY

President Obama’s proposed budget came out earlier this week. His arts budget remained largely the same as last year, but the NASA budget was not as lucky. Obama cut funding to the Bush-era plan to return to the moon by 2020 and, instead, allotted $6 billion to the agency for research and commercial development of space-related technology.

It seems that with a record deficit and 10% unemployment, space travel is not a priority to the U.S. government. NASA suddenly finds itself, not for the first time, in a situation where it must argue on behalf of it’s tax-dollar worthiness.

This is a familiar situation for arts organizations. The threat of budget-cuts to arts education is a near constant concern at public schools, and the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts was only recently restored to Clinton-era numbers.

Ok, so the science kids finally got their budget cut, too. The MIT and Stanford grads at NASA are a smart bunch, of course, and I bet they put up a pretty savvy fight. And you know what? The arts community can learn something from the rhetoric that they will use to protest the budget cuts.

So far, I’ve seen two interesting things:

1.) In a Senate hearing this week, Obama’s budget director argued with Senators about the budgets cuts to NASA space flight program. The most vocal opponent of the plan, as you might expect, was Florida Senator Bill Nelson. Nelson is, himself, a former astronaut and, of course, well aware of the $4.5 billion impact that the space industry has on his home state. The aerospace industry in Florida represents 23,000 jobs in Florida. You can bet that senators from other space-industry states (…clap! clap! clap! clap! – DEEP IN THE HEART OF…) will also be protesting these budget cuts.

This is a good technique. Every industry needs advocates, and senators are a good start. You know what else works? Those numbers. But check these out:

The non-profit arts industry in the United States brings in $134 billion every year in economic activity. The industry includes 4.85 million full-time equivalent jobs. Altogether we generate over $10 billion in income taxes for the federal government.

I’m not done. According to a 2005 study there are 49 congressional districts in the country that have more than 10,000 arts workers, and more than half of all congressional districts have more than 5,000 arts workers. The highest concentration is in the 8th Congressional district – New York City – which (just in this one district!) includes 119,320 arts workers. In New York City alone the arts create an economic impact of $21.2 billion, including $904 million in taxes back to the city.

Take that, Florida, with your lousy $4.5 billion for aerospace industry. We make nearly 5 times that much in just New York City.

The next time the arts get into budget trouble, I hope to see the senators from arts-industry states (Hello, Cal-eee-forn-ya) fighting as hard for our jobs as the space-states are right now for theirs.

2.) In an interview on the Lehrer News Hour, Michael Griffin, a former NASA administrator, made the case for NASA. He said:

“I think the contribution of human spaceflight to the posture of America in the world and the technology and industrial base that we have today more than pays for itself.”

Pretty good, right? Like I said, these guys are smart. Let’s use this.

Try substituting “human spaceflight” with “jazz music”. Also, replace “technology and industrial base” with “commercial and cultural benefits”. Also (just because it bothers me), clean up the grammar. So it reads:

I think the contribution of jazz music to the posture of America in the world, as well as the commercial and cultural benefits that they have created, more than pay for themselves.

BAM. Replace “jazz music” with any kind of art – ballet, sculpture, opera… The next time we find ourselves with looming budget cuts for the arts, that’s our talking point. It’s brilliant. It was formulated by some of the smartest scientists on the planet. That is a space-age talking point.

Maybe we could use it today and get an increase in the federal arts budget instead of letting it remain flat?

No, let’s not push our luck.

About the author

David J. Hahn is a music director and pianist in New York City. He co-founded MusicianWages.com with Cameron Mizell in 2008. His writing have been published in the International Musician, union trade papers and featured on the Huffington Post and About.com. Find out more at his website and follow him on Twitter.

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Not to go too off topic here, but I live in the same county KSC is located. It’s the area of Florida called the Space Coast. Playing locally, the older jazz guys reminisce about what this area was like in the 50s and 60s.

Once the space program started taking off, people moved into town from miles, and it was like a neverending party from Canaveral down through Cocoa Beach and even farther south. They talked about how even in high school, they were busy five nights a week and played just about everywhere. Many of those guys lived off of those gigs from that time, and that’s all they’ve done since.

Of course, it’s not like that any more, but you never think about how much something completely unrelated like NASA can affect your ability to work. And it’s really cool to sit and think and imagine what my home was like fifty years ago when America was on top, and we were throwing men on the moon from right here. And a piano player I play with from time to time told me abut how he was down the road jamming at a place in Cocoa Beach when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would walk in and sit down for a burger and a beer. It was their favorite place to eat.

Nick
2/5/2010

oh my gosh! This has made my day! I’m a senior at Prescott high school and im writing my senior paper on arts funding and the budget cuts. So i look it up on yahoo, read a few articles “eh, they’re OK” but then i clicked on this one….. this just makes me happy when i read it! I play 4 different clarinets and french horn and want to major in film scoring, so music is my thing. Reading this article is just so awesome! I would just love to see the faces on NASA people that read this and pretty much everyone against the arts. it just makes me happy that someone i don’t know has the same feelings towards this situation without having to talk about your feelings like crazy, you gave the facts and that’s amazing. Thank you so much for this! Thank you thank you thank you!

Stevie Peek
3/10/2010