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Showing posts from October, 2016

Have you ever been to a movie?

Senator James Paterson wants Blue Poles sold , and all funding of arts and sport stopped, to help pay off our national debt. The estimated $350 million the painting might gather would represent about 0.07% of our $470 billion gross national debt. Paterson claims that we "fund $7 billion a year into the arts". He's wrong. Federal spending on the arts this financial year is $639 million. Not even close. The budget he's referring to is the culture budget and includes everything from arts, the ABC, libraries, museums, and even zoos. I imagine he's not actually suggesting we wipe all those things away. Or does the Senator genuinely believe that a society with a little less debt is better than one with libraries, a national broadcaster and working artists? Has he ever been to a movie? Does the Senator also realise that the $7 billion government investment in culture makes a $50 billion economic impact? Does the Senator mean that we should ignore this r