The arts are a proven moneymaker and that’s not fake news

As the President of The Creative Coalition, I often speak out about the positive economic benefits of the arts. The arts and entertainment industry are the second largest export of the United States resulting in a growing trade surplus. The arts contributed $730 billion to our nation’s GDP and are responsible for over 4.8 million jobs.

But I get tired of trying to convince policy makers to support the arts with an argument based on financial efficacy and profit. Yes, studying music makes you better at math. Yes, your SAT scores will be higher if you study arts. Yes, you’ll be far more likely to graduate from high school, and to go to college if you study arts. Yes, every dollar invested by the federal government in the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) leverages another $9 from other sources.

{mosads}Any good businessman would make that deal. The arts are a proven moneymaker and that’s not fake news. Yet with all the facts and impressive statistics on what the arts provide to our economy and our students, policy makers in Washington still do not seem to get it. The arts are again under attack and the NEA is again in danger of being eliminated under the budget proposed by President Trump, so I want to change the way we talk about the arts in this country.

The time has come for all Americans to stand up and call for the right to bear arts. We must stand up for the right to maintain an imaginative and expressive population. And we must prevent these draconian funding cuts for the NEA from becoming a devastating reality.

The true argument for the value of the arts cannot only be measured by economic output or student test scores. The arts are the custodians of our American identity. They are the emissaries of our culture. The arts are woven into the fabric of our nation. Eliminating funding for the NEA will not hurt the folks who go to galas at the Kennedy Center or Carnegie Hall. It will not hurt Hollywood actors like me.

It hurts people living in small towns all over this country who will not have access to the arts without NEA support for their community theater or traveling arts exhibitions. It hurts our wounded warriors who experience the healing power of the arts through their participation in NEA funded creative arts therapies. Without the NEA there will be less creativity, less imagination and less freedom of expression and that hurts all of us.

For those of you who still do not believe the arts has much impact on your daily life, I suspect you participate in artistic activities every single day without even realizing it. Maybe you start your day by singing in the car on your way to work.

Maybe you read your daughter a bedtime story and she points at the pictures. Maybe you sing in your church choir or dance in the living room. Maybe you arrange flowers from your garden. Maybe you walk through the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on your way to a meeting and pause for a moment to appreciate the sculptures and paintings. I’ll bet you stand and sing the national anthem when you’re at a ball game. The arts are the universal language of our humanity that challenge, educate, enlighten and entertain us every day.

I would like to enlist all of you to help change the narrative about arts in this country. We cannot afford to dismiss the arts as something expendable, an unnecessary luxury, as something extra, like dessert. The arts are the main course. In the wake of proposals to eliminate federal funding for the arts, we must stand up for the NEA and we must defend the Right to Bear Arts.

Tim Daly is an actor and the president of The Creative Coalition.

The views of contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.