By Joanna Woronkowicz
President Trump’s latest budget proposal calls—once again—for eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The reaction has been predictably urgent: statements of disapproval, calls to action, and campaigns to protect what remains.
But after decades of reactive advocacy, maybe it’s time to ask a different question. Not how we defend these institutions from attack, but why they remain so vulnerable in the first place. The uncomfortable answer is that the U.S. never built a robust, coherent public policy system to support the arts. What we have instead is a patchwork of stopgap measures, fragile institutions, and borrowed infrastructure—enough to create the appearance of public support, but not enough to withstand political or economic shocks.
Throughout American history, government support for the arts has often come in bursts—responses to crisis or moments of political opportunity, rather than part of a long-term strategy. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration employed thousands of artists through the Federal Art Project. It was bold and visionary—but also temporary. When the crisis passed, so did the support. In 1965, the NEA and NEH were born out of a moment of national ambition—the Great Society—but they were created without the full legislative authorization that would protect them from future cuts. As a result, they have always operated on uncertain footing, vulnerable to annual budget negotiations and changing administrations. This lack of permanence isn’t just a quirk of history—it’s a design flaw. And it’s one that continues to shape the precarious position of arts institutions and workers today.
In my forthcoming book, Artists at Work: Rethinking Policy for Artistic Careers, I argue that what we call U.S. arts policy is really just a series of adaptations—often poorly suited—to a sector that policymakers never really designed for. The tax system, for example, allows collectors to deduct the full value of donated artworks, but artists can only deduct the cost of materials—because the code was written for businesses selling goods, not people producing creative labor. Labor law and social benefits like unemployment insurance and paid leave were built for full-time employees with regular paychecks—not freelancers, gig workers, or creative professionals with nonlinear income streams. And copyright law, arguably the most important legal tool for artists, still favors large intermediaries and was never adapted for the digital or AI-driven age. These aren’t isolated issues. They reflect a systemic mismatch between how creative work functions and how public policy is built.
What’s needed now isn’t just more money or more advocacy. It’s a new approach: a policy framework that sees the arts not as an afterthought or a luxury, but as a regular part of our economic and civic life. Artists are workers. Arts organizations are employers, producers, and community anchors. The sector needs the same things any other sector needs: stable institutions, legal protections, predictable rules, and infrastructure that supports long-term sustainability. That means a permanently authorized NEA and NEH, not ones renewed at the mercy of each budget cycle. It means aligning tax, labor, and copyright policies with the actual conditions of creative work. And it means designing systems that account for complexity, adapt to technological change, and center the lived experience of the people they’re meant to serve.
We’ve seen what happens when we rely on short-term programs—during the pandemic, during recessions, after natural disasters. Relief arrives late and leaves early. The underlying vulnerability remains.
Trump’s proposed cuts are not the problem—they’re the symptom. The real issue is that we keep defending a system that was never designed to last. It’s time to stop reacting and start planning. A well-designed policy system doesn’t need to be defended every year. It endures because it’s built on sound principles: clarity of purpose, fit between policy tools and real-world conditions, and a recognition that creative work is part of the economy—not outside of it.