"Someone explain to me, please, how giving $50,000,000 to the National Endowment for the Arts... will make life better... for a family of four in middle America...."

Of course, some of the breadwinners for those middle-American families are people who make their livings in the arts. The arts have been severely affected by the economic mess. Orchestras, theaters, and museums that have been very dependent on corporate contributions for years are having to close their doors as those funding sources dry up. A violinist whose symphony has closed its doors is just as out of work as a car salesman whose dealership has gone out of business.

Some people say that the arts are a luxury, not a necessity, so people employed within the arts should just go out and find "real" work. Well, there's a helluva lot of jobs that fall into that "luxury, not necessity" category. Restaurants, sports, movies, television, computers, telephones, travel, tourism, new cars, boats, airplanes, and probably about half of what's sold in most retail stores are all things that we could live without. I suppose all the people involved in those industries should find "real" work digging ditches or something.