I'd have to agree with the blogospheric consensus that restricting the $50 Million in NEA bailout money to people who received grants from the NEA during the Bush administration was a mistake. I don't think it's necessarily worth the angry invective, and I think money for the arts is in general is a good thing and it's worth keeping in mind that in concrete terms arts organizations will be helped by this money. That doesn't make the move above criticism, however.
I also understand procedurally why limiting grant recipients in this way may have seemed a good idea at the time. Because the NEA is founded on a model whose guiding principle is "REALLY! WE'RE NOT THE SOVIET UNION! I SWEAR TO GOD!" the procedures for okay an organization for a grant are fairly baroque. They are baroque to ensure "independence" within the peer review process. It's a pretty long three step thing with committees and everything. Not only that, the actual employees of the NEA do not get to weigh in on the decisions because of the aforementioned independence. In other words, if you are Joe NEA and you want to get this money out as quickly as possible, limiting to the pool to orgs that already have the Independent Seal of Approval on them means an expedited process.
That, as far as I can tell, is the best argument for limiting the money. You can also make the argument that since the $50 million is paltry and inadequate (which it is, just because it's a step in the right direction worth a small amount of celebrating doesn't also make it not paltry and inadequate) limiting the applicant pool will keep you from the desire to do too much with it, handing out a lot of grants too small to really be effective.
There's also the argument-from-political-cowardice: Using only orgs that were supported by Bush's NEA might keep the Republicans from demogoguing the recipients.
And these are somewhat understandable as arguments, I mean, I get how you would end up at "let's restrict it to Bush-era NEA grantees". But it's still misguided. Organizations that have already received grants from the NEA already have a leg up, grant wise, vs. those who did not. Furthermore, don't you want bailout money to go where it's needed the most? There's no connection between "got an NEA grant within the last four years" and "needs money the most" or is "worthiest of getting it". None whatsoever. It's basically arbitrary and worthy organizations will lose out as a result.
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