BS. The NEA is a wonderful use of taxpayer money. Without art, life is only barely worth living. Go after the bad stuff the government does, not the good stuff.
Horseshit.
First of all, art goes on all around you without government grants.
When my wife and I break out the calligraphy supplies and do a framed quote for a graduation, that's art.
When our neighbors slave for an entire summer to get their landscaping just right, that's art.
When my friend refuses to take schlock pressboard-estate architecture jobs in a crap market because he has resolved only to design new and interesting buildings, that's art.
When an old lady hand stitches a new quilt for the new baby at her church, that's art.
When Revolution volunteers paint pictures of RP holding babies to post on the internet, that's art.
Second of all, I fucking resent you statists telling me it isn't. Because that's what you're doing - saying that since none of that is government funded, it is not art. You're saying that if it's functional, in demand, and done by a regular person, it's not art.
All of those people are having their earnings confiscated to support your "genuine" artists. If they all had that money, they would be generating hundreds or thousands of times more art than the few artists who are on government grants. So you are advocating a situation where less art is created, making you art's enemy.