Upcoming Arts Tax?!?

With the election barely over, it seems that there is more wasteful spending on the horizon. I am reminded of a disclaimer that one reads as they enter the Shadowbox Caberet in Newport, KY, it states that they are a 'grant-free zone'. They refuse to accept government handouts simply because if people don't care enough for your art to pay to appreciate it, then it is not good art. By giving hand outs to art that people wouldn't pay to see, you are in fact, supporting a poor product. Just as is the case with any business, if an artist cannot support their work, then they need to strive to do better, or work in a genre that can bring out their talent better. But with government handouts, they can continue to create mediocre work. If you don't belive me, just look Cincinnati's side of the Purple People Bridge (an artist was given $200,000 for that).


http://www.gocoast.org/pressrelease/media121106.html

"These folks never, ever go away," according to COAST Board member and State Representative Tom Brinkman. The "folks" to whom he refers are those who want more of your tax monies for more and more wasteful projects.

COAST sees the unmistakable signs of a coordinated and renewed push in Hamilton County for a new tax for arts and other community service organizations, including the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. These include this editorial in the Cincinnati Business Courier, and the article in Sunday's Cincinnati Enquirer with all of the tell-tale preparations for a levy campaign.

In 2001, COAST succeeded in beating back a similar proposal by then-County Commissioner Tommy Neyer to provide more than a half-million in annual funding for a so-called "Regional Cultural Alliance." See links here, here and here.

The Business Courier editorial directly endorses an arts levy before anyone even asked for one, seeking funding for Cincinnati USA Partnership for Economic Development, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the Banks, the symphony, playhouse, opera and "other organizations that make Cincinnati a cultural wonderland." [We wish we were, but we are not kidding about this.] Fortunately, already County Auditor Dusty Rhodes is speaking out against the proposed tax, here.

The Enquirer article is more sinister and incredibly poor journalism, in hinting towards a new tax but (i) neither probing into whether and how "arts" supporters intend to pursue the same and (ii) failing to obtain opposing viewpoints of new public funding of the arts projects.
The article, shamelessly has a one-sided title: "City arts in trouble, Cultural institutions face financial peril." Listing as needy institutions are the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Museum Center, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and then states: "with hundreds of millions in capital projects on the horizon, and the city of Cincinnati's strained budget putting arts funding in jeopardy, several groups warn that financial crisis is perpetually just around the corner."

Finally, in unexplained code, reporter Cliff Peale half-reveals (without any follow up questions) what the groups have in mind:

A coalition of local arts and civic groups, including the Greater Cincinnati Foundation and the Cincinnati Business Committee, has spent several years studying whether there should be a centralized revenue stream for the arts or whether arts groups should coordinate their capital requests.

"'Centralized revenue stream' is the special term used by big government-types that they want a perpetual levy funded by the taxpayers," said COAST Chairman Jim Urling. "It is clear that those same people who brought you the stadium tax, and the failed 'Regional Cultural Alliance,' and the discredited Light Rail Tax, and the same folks who are pushing for state funding of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and on and on and on, are organizing behind the scenes for a new 'arts' levy on Hamilton County residents."

"Taxpayer support is simply an excuse by Cincinnati's arts and cultural institutions to avoid responding to the marketplace," said Urling. "Each one of them simply must figure out how to become successful without creating additional burdens on taxpayers."

Cincinnati and Hamilton County are already some of the highest-taxed jurisdictions in the nation, as revealed by this study and this article.

Urling has a message for big-taxers emboldened by the election of a new liberal Democrat County Commission: "Go ahead, make our day. The voters of Hamilton County will not tolerate a new "arts' tax. 68% of County residents oppose new funding for the underground Railroad Freedom Center, and more will oppose this cockamamie idea. Nothing will energize anti-tax voters more than these attempted cash grabs by Cincinnati's elite."