Trump tries to eliminate the NEA

President Trump proposed to eliminate the National Foundation for the Arts and the National Foundation for the Humanities in the Budget, which he published on Friday, and again aimed at two agencies that he had tried and could not get rid of during his first term.

The foundations were together with the Institute for Museum and Library Sciences on the units, which were listed for the next financial year in a section entitled “Small Agency Eliminations” in his budget blueprint. The document states that the proposal “agreed to reduce the size of the Federal Government in order to improve the accountability, reduce waste and to reduce unnecessary state companies”, and found that the proposals for Mr. Trump's earlier budgets also “supported these elimination”.

In 2017, during his first term, Mr. Trump proposed to remove both the arts and the humanities. But the support in the congress kept her alive and in fact her budget grew during the first Trump administration.

Since Mr. Trump returned to office this year, his government has directed the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which canceled most of their existing grants and lined up a large part of their employees. But the art agency still had to announced big cuts.

The proposal to remove the foundations led to a quick and angry reaction from Democrats. One, Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island, Schwor to fight the plan, to remove NEA's “tooth and nail”.

The representative Chellie Pingree from Maine, who acts as a top democrat in the sub-committee of the house for the NEA, said in an interview that Mr. Trump “carried out a broad attack on the arts, both for financing and content”. She quoted his suggestions to remove the foundations and his takeover of John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington and his efforts to influence the Smithsonian Institution.