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The Current Agenda
by Adam Natale in Winter 2005: The Advocacy Issue
So we've convinced you to get involved. Now what?
Below are three issues and agenda items currently up for debate in our national legislature. Write a letter, send an email, make a phone call. Find out how these issues affect you and your community. Seek out local grassroots organizations and ask how you can contribute. No matter what you do get involved!
Disaster Relief for the Arts
Since September, Congress has passed legislature allocating more than $60 billion to emergency disaster relief efforts in the southern regions devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Despite the significant number of arts organizations left helpless by this disaster, no funds have been specifically designated for the rebuilding of these organizations, to allow their communities to revitalize their cultural heritage and identity. Further hurricane relief packages are being discussed in Congress, so it's not too late to lobby for more disaster relief funding for the arts.
International Artist Visas
Delays by U.S. immigration policy are making it increasingly difficult for visiting foreign artists to obtain and pay for work visas to enter the country. The artists themselves, and the nonprofit arts organizations hosting them, face increasing delays in addition to nearly unaffordable costs, eliminating the potential for cultural artistic exchange. Basic administrative reforms are still under investigation. Voicing your support for these reforms quickly will help the cause.
Charitable Giving
Many tax issues affecting the arts are currently under debate in Congress, among them the question of how to value a work of art as a charitable contribution, and how artists may or may not continue to claim donated works of art as charitable contributions at the end of their fiscal year.
For more information and the most current advocacy news, go to www.artsusa.org and click on "Get Involved" or to www.americanartsalliance.org and click on "Take Action" or "Issue Center."
Both websites include simple action tools, including letters of support that you can email to your local and national representatives with just the click of a few buttons.
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