Where, exactly, would arts $$ go?

[h2ofwlr]

Dennis Anderson: Where, exactly, would arts $$ go?
Conservationists are seeking millions to clean up the state's natural resources and have specific plans on how the money would be spent. Supporters of the arts, seeking the same sort of funding, should supply similar details.
By Dennis Anderson, Star Tribune
Last update: March 02, 2007 – 9:25 AM


In its death throes now, the notion of dedicating money to clean up the state's rivers and lakes, preserve its forests and refurbish its uplands is gasping for air in the Legislature.
A good idea, even a great one, the proposal to assign a fraction of the state sales tax to these efforts -- as other states have -- has ridden on the hopes and dreams of hundreds of thousands of supporters for at least nine years.

But the effort is dying a death of a thousand selfish cuts.

Absurd, really, considering that supporters ask only that Minnesotans be allowed to vote on the idea, up or down.

Sen. Dick Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, has inflicted the most damage, insisting the arts be funded in the constitution along with conservation -- a fantasy that really does take the cake for legislative carpetbagging.

Cohen says "the arts," broadly speaking, need the millions of dollars -- $25 million or more under some proposals -- that would come its way, year after year, should a constitutionally dedicated conservation-and-arts fund be established.

Yet how would so much money be spent?

We know how conservationists would spend their slice of a multimillion-dollar pie, should the Legislature approve a dedicated funding bill, and should voters approve it in November 2008.

Rivers and lakes would be monitored and cleaned, as the federal government has mandated. Wetlands would be restored. Public forests would be kept intact, rather than traded as commodities. And uplands would be diversified to include more grasses and wildlife.

But just what is it that "the arts" need that costs $25 million or more a year -- this in a state where the top brass of some arts groups knock down annual salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Nobody knows.

Because neither Cohen nor his supporters has told us.

Yes, we've heard something about public broadcasting stations outside the Twin Cities needing money to upgrade their equipment.

And members of a statewide arts council are short of money, the story goes, and an uptick in appropriations via a constitutionally dedicated fund would go a long way toward making them whole.

Inherent in such pleas is the assumption that the arts are worthy of having such inflows guaranteed in the constitution; that somehow "the arts" are as essential to Minnesota as land and water and the life they support.

Maybe the arts are that important.

But a whole lot of people aren't convinced.

Particularly embarrassing is that some of these people are legislators who are willing to go along to get along, in part because Cohen and his Senate compatriots -- Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, among them -- hold powerful posts and for kicks day-trade in favors.

So here's a challenge to Cohen, et al.:

Conservationists have laid out quite plainly how they would spend the money, and described specifically as well -- with consensus-- the need the state has for an environmental makeover, as it were.

How would you, Sen. Cohen and supporters, spend your loot?

Perhaps if those proposed arts appropriations are detailed, then even bumpkins like me will see the light and swap the old Winchester for a shot at bellowing "Stella!" on a Saturday before a sea of folding chairs, most empty.

Of course, I'm not as witty by half as I might hope.

The point is, show us the money.

Or, rather, show us how you would spend the money.

Assuming such a proposal exists, I'll publish it on these pages, sans comment. Readers -- taxpayers -- can decide its worth for themselves

Maybe then I'll also be convinced, and if so can at last drink from the same Kool-Aid that some environmental-group leaders are drinking. Having traded principle for expediency, they now "oppose" Cohen's and Pogemiller's arts add-ons with a wink and a nod.

Better they, like legislators, remind themselves that land, water, air and wildlife are unique Minnesota constituencies.

Unable to speak for themselves, and trod upon now by generations of Minnesota politicians, they define us as nothing else does.

One cut at a time, their losses are ours.


Dennis Anderson • danderson@startribune.com




The urban liberals at their finest again.  Where, exactly, would arts $$ go?     

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Dennis Anderson: Where, exactly, would arts $$ go?
Conservationists are seeking millions to clean up the state's natural resources and have specific plans on how the money would be spent. Supporters of the arts, seeking the same sort of funding, should supply similar details.
By Dennis Anderson, Star Tribune
Last update: March 02, 2007 – 9:25 AM


In its death throes now, the notion of dedicating money to clean up the state's rivers and lakes, preserve its forests and refurbish its uplands is gasping for air in the Legislature.
A good idea, even a great one, the proposal to assign a fraction of the state sales tax to these efforts -- as other states have -- has ridden on the hopes and dreams of hundreds of thousands of supporters for at least nine years.

But the effort is dying a death of a thousand selfish cuts.

Absurd, really, considering that supporters ask only that Minnesotans be allowed to vote on the idea, up or down.

Sen. Dick Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, has inflicted the most damage, insisting the arts be funded in the constitution along with conservation -- a fantasy that really does take the cake for legislative carpetbagging.

Cohen says "the arts," broadly speaking, need the millions of dollars -- $25 million or more under some proposals -- that would come its way, year after year, should a constitutionally dedicated conservation-and-arts fund be established.

Yet how would so much money be spent?

We know how conservationists would spend their slice of a multimillion-dollar pie, should the Legislature approve a dedicated funding bill, and should voters approve it in November 2008.

Rivers and lakes would be monitored and cleaned, as the federal government has mandated. Wetlands would be restored. Public forests would be kept intact, rather than traded as commodities. And uplands would be diversified to include more grasses and wildlife.

But just what is it that "the arts" need that costs $25 million or more a year -- this in a state where the top brass of some arts groups knock down annual salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Nobody knows.

Because neither Cohen nor his supporters has told us.

Yes, we've heard something about public broadcasting stations outside the Twin Cities needing money to upgrade their equipment.

And members of a statewide arts council are short of money, the story goes, and an uptick in appropriations via a constitutionally dedicated fund would go a long way toward making them whole.

Inherent in such pleas is the assumption that the arts are worthy of having such inflows guaranteed in the constitution; that somehow "the arts" are as essential to Minnesota as land and water and the life they support.

Maybe the arts are that important.

But a whole lot of people aren't convinced.

Particularly embarrassing is that some of these people are legislators who are willing to go along to get along, in part because Cohen and his Senate compatriots -- Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, among them -- hold powerful posts and for kicks day-trade in favors.

So here's a challenge to Cohen, et al.:

Conservationists have laid out quite plainly how they would spend the money, and described specifically as well -- with consensus-- the need the state has for an environmental makeover, as it were.

How would you, Sen. Cohen and supporters, spend your loot?

Perhaps if those proposed arts appropriations are detailed, then even bumpkins like me will see the light and swap the old Winchester for a shot at bellowing "Stella!" on a Saturday before a sea of folding chairs, most empty.

Of course, I'm not as witty by half as I might hope.

The point is, show us the money.

Or, rather, show us how you would spend the money.

Assuming such a proposal exists, I'll publish it on these pages, sans comment. Readers -- taxpayers -- can decide its worth for themselves

Maybe then I'll also be convinced, and if so can at last drink from the same Kool-Aid that some environmental-group leaders are drinking. Having traded principle for expediency, they now "oppose" Cohen's and Pogemiller's arts add-ons with a wink and a nod.

Better they, like legislators, remind themselves that land, water, air and wildlife are unique Minnesota constituencies.

Unable to speak for themselves, and trod upon now by generations of Minnesota politicians, they define us as nothing else does.

One cut at a time, their losses are ours.


Dennis Anderson • danderson@startribune.com




The urban liberals at their finest again. 
He is one of the legislators that derailed it last session too.