Letters on arts funding, Trump agenda, Trump assets, building wall

Beware of government spending on the arts

While visiting Wichita in October, I learned that city government subsidies for the arts is a contentious issue. I’d like to offer a perspective: Don’t do it. Art is too important to be dependent on politicians, and injecting politics into anything inevitably tarnishes it.

Those “studies” that purport to show X return on Y amount of government arts spending are a laughingstock among economists. The numbers are cooked and almost never compared to alternative uses of tax money. Even less frequently do subsidy advocates consider what people might choose to do if their earnings weren’t taxed away in the first place.

What if “public investment” simply displaces a certain amount of private investment? Arts subsidy advocates never raise this issue, but I know that I personally am far less likely to make a charitable donation to something I know is on the dole than to something that depends on the good hearts of willing givers.

And money that comes voluntarily from the heart is more meaningful than money that comes at gunpoint (taxes). For that reason I don’t believe in either arts welfare or shotgun marriages.

If we don’t rob Peter the worker to pay Paul the artist, perhaps Paul may have to become a better artist or a better marketer of his art, or perhaps find another profession entirely. Welcome, Paul, to the real world of willing customers and earning an honest living.

Watch Trump agenda

Recent letters criticizing columnist Leonard Pitts for his refusal to accept the Trump agenda are dripping in sanctimonious hypocrisy.

The canonic decoration of support for Donald Trump, with the assertion that whatever he did Hillary Clinton did worse, never specify exactly what she did. What she did was use the private e-mail server of a former president of the United States, which was apparently well protected, as it has not been hacked.

By contrast, Trump is a salesman who will get his foot in the door with any pitch he finds useful. People say that to criticize him is to criticize the voters who elected him, and that I am glad to do.

In my long life, I have never heard anyone, privately or publicly, make the bigoted, misogynist, ignorant statements about any religion or race or gender or sexual orientation or nationality that Trump shouted from the podium at crowded rallies. For his statements, he attracted support of white supremacy advocates.

Like Pitts, I refuse to “come together” with these supporters of the worst, long-standing views that are, unfortunately, American as apple pie.

We must separate issues from people, and support President-elect Trump’s proposals when we can. But we must watch carefully to see if the privatization of public property and institutions is hidden in the corner of the salesman’s public case.

Why divest assets?

I don’t see why President-elect Donald Trump has to divest his assets. Just because someone who is a wealthy business person steps up to the plate to run for the highest office in the nation, why should that person be punished by requiring him to liquidate his assets?

What kind of signal does that send to future perspective candidates?

Trump mostly spent his own money to run for office. The office of the president is also a limited time. Should he then have to start all over again to build his empire? That doesn’t seem fair to me.

Whether you voted for him or not, Trump struck a chord with the American public, and he deserves a fair chance.

I also think that his children should be allowed and even encouraged to participate in his administration. I watched the “60 Minutes” interview with Trump and his children. He obviously feels comfortable having his children around. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had such a cohesive relationship.

I want the next president to have everything he needs, including his family, to make a success of his administration, especially given the challenges facing our country.

Surely we can come to some agreement about how to monitor the situation so there is no conflict of interest.

Immigrants build wall?

Should America consider setting up a modern 1930s-type of Civilian Conservation Corps program designed to secure the border, while allowing some of the millions of illegal immigrants living here to work to earn their citizenship?

Suppose the southern border was divided into about four segments, with work camps in each segment run by the Army Corps of Engineers utilizing quasi-military rules. The illegal immigrants (volunteers) would work to secure the border. At the same time, they would attend classes to learn American civics, history, English and other issues deemed appropriate to their citizenship. Upon successful completion of the program, they would be given citizenship tests.

If successful, the plan might spawn other ideas to help assimilate some of the other illegal immigrants, while requiring them to work to earn their citizenship, rather than just giving it to them.

Would President-elect Donald Trump embrace such an idea? Who knows, but given the irony of using illegals to build the wall, he just might.

This story was originally published November 29, 2016 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Letters on arts funding, Trump agenda, Trump assets, building wall."