RI Arts Bureaucracy Defends Its Turf

I dislike any political situation that puts me in the position of seeming to oppose the arts. I relish the arts. I wouldn’t have been so passionate about writing music or spent years writing a novel that is, if anything, overly artistic were it otherwise.

Those who fault my politics can laugh, if they like, but I still consider myself in many respects to be an artist. Indeed, one constant throughout my life has been my tendency to be anti-establishment, which used to be the singular sign of the true artist.

That’s why I take such umbrage to the establishment media and an the arts agency of the Rhode Island government (even the statement of which ought to make artists cringe) when they use their positions to defame my work. As much as it may be a milestone to find myself front and center of the image on the Providence Journal’s homepage, as I write, the associated article is just unbelievable.

Here you’ve got a report listing $225 million in suggested cuts to the governor’s proposed 2015 budget, and 82% of the article is devoted not to the items in the report or how it relates to officials’ favorite claim that cuts cannot be found, but to one agency’s assertion that a few thousand dollars worth of past examples, which aren’t even included in the total dollar amount, are “inaccurate.”

What’s worse, reporter Tatiana Pina doesn’t bother with even a pretense of having attempted to investigate who is correct. My side was the subject of my previous post; here, I’ll spend a few words on the state Council on the Arts’ response.

The first point to be made is the ploy of head-bureaucrat Randall Rosenbaum (who, by the way, took home $88,214 of the $345,375 in salaries the state paid the council’s 6 employees in 2013, added to what appears to be his wife’s $59,384 from Rhode Island College): “Rhode Island spends less than seven one-hundredths of one percent (0.0007) of its General Fund to support the arts.”

Without checking his total, that’s still around $6 million. That amount of money only seems small because the state spends so mind-bogglingly much in general. I might as well say that the state could fund the work of the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity for just 0.00003 of the state budget, and throw in a left-wing counterpart for the same amount. We would never request that money, though, because it would be wrong of us to take it involuntarily from the people of Rhode Island.

The second point to be made is that Rosenbaum wants to have everything both ways. “This years’ grant” to the RI International Film Festival, he says, “was $4,386, less than 1% of their $650,000 annual budget.” And yet, he wants to claim that $4,386 is critical. Which is it? Do we hardly contribute at all, or could the organization not exist without our contribution?

Skim through the council’s list of FY2014 fellows, and you’ll find the awesome Web site of this guy:

William Smyth is a 7-time Emmy award-winning filmmaker and photographer who grew up in Warwick and attended Warwick Veterans Memorial High School and Rhode Island College. His work has appeared on MTV, Discovery, The Hallmark Channel and local television stations in Boston and Providence. He has directed and served as cinematographer on numerous short films and music videos including such acts as Mark Culter, Marissa Nadler and Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores. His corporate clients include North Star Marketing, Gravity Lab Studios, (add)ventures and UMass Med School. His most recent works include Director of Photography on Guitar #1711, Guy Benoit’s documentary on custom guitar maker Otto D’Ambrosio and Dahiana Torres’ feature film debut, “Pain, Love & Passion”, and the critically acclaimed horror-short “Microcinema” for director Skip Shea.

This is a guy who needs five grand worth of approbation from struggling Rhode Island taxpayers? I don’t think so. I think we need to add up some of these 0.0007 expenditures from the state and come up with the 0.006 (or thereabouts) that the Center projects would drop the sales tax from 7% to 3% and generate nearly 15,000 jobs.

As the report notes, the General Assembly eliminated the sales tax for the arts in Rhode Island, last year. That’s enough of an investment in the arts, and nobody should doubt that we’ve made more than enough investments in bureaucracy.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in The Ocean State Current, including text, graphics, images, and information are solely those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the views and opinions of The Current, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, or its members or staff. The Current cannot be held responsible for information posted or provided by third-party sources. Readers are encouraged to fact check any information on this web site with other sources.

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