A budget that would continue to fund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is one step closer to becoming law.
By a vote of 30 to 21, the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee has passed a fiscal year 2018 budget that would fund the endowments at $145 million each per year, a slight decrease from current levels of $150 million. The bill, totaling $31.4 billion, was penned by Ken Calvert, the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies.
The bill has yet to go to a full House vote. If it passes, it would then go to the Senate for consideration before being signed into law.
Funding for the endowments has been a political football for decades, generally breaking down along party lines, with Republicans typically calling to reduce or eliminate cultural funding and Democrats supporting it. President Donald Trump has proposed zeroing out funding for the agencies, even as some members of his own party have come out in support of continued funding.