"WHAT were you thinking?": The Cultural Alliance weighs in on the state sales tax on arts & culture

 

Good evening.  For those of you that don't know me, I'm Peggy Amsterdam, President of the Cultural Alliance. Thank you all for joining us tonight and for the wonderful work you all do to make arts and culture one of the defining strengths of our region.  My principal role later tonight will be to present to you our latest research report, Research Into Action, and as part of that presentation we’re going to be talking a lot about increasing engagement.  But, given the announcement from the Governor this past Friday evening, I must begin tonight by applying the theme of engagement to the important and immediate issue of policy.  There's an audience we particularly need to engage right now, and they’re about 100 miles west of here in Harrisburg.

 

So, here's my message to Governor Rendell and the Leaders of the Legislature…

WHAT were you thinking?

The budget deal that you conceived last Friday night may be good politics, but it's bad policy.   Your proposal to extend the sales tax to arts and culture activities—a proposal snuck in at the last minute in a backroom deal—attempts to balance the Commonwealth's $28 billion budget on the back of one of its most valuable AND vulnerable industries!

It will price everyday people out of arts experiences, and it will push key cultural institutions to the brink.  Yet with as much potential for economic and social damage as this tax threatens, it yields only a paltry 1/3 of 1 % impact on state revenues.

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

As Mayor, you built the Avenue of the Arts, and used it as a catalyst to rebuild the city.  Why dismantle it now?

And, why have arts been singled out for this tax, when other forms of entertainment such as sporting events and movies have been exempted?

Finally, why has the arts community been excluded from the table?

What you and your colleagues have proposed hurts cultural organizations, yes, but worse, it hurts Pennsylvanians.  Single parents who want to engage in quality activities with their children, families who visit the Zoo every weekend, students who want to be inspired and challenged by new ways of thinking about the world around them—these are the people who will be forced to pay your new tax.  And these are the people whose quality of life, whose education, and whose communities will suffer as a result.

Arts and culture is a critical component of healthy Pennsylvania communities.  Our activities support hotels, restaurants, and many other businesses because we are the reason people come to live, work, and play in the Commonwealth.  Destroy our ability to provide cost-effective services to Pennsylvania communities, and you destroy the very nature of our ability to support them.  It's a fool's errand.

HEAR this - we will NOT sit by and quietly accept this.

We have little time, but we will rally our members, their boards, corporate leaders and supporters of arts and culture from around the Commonwealth.

So, Governor Rendell and legislative leaders -

In the next few days you will hear from us. We will clog your FAX machines, email and phones. We will be waiting to see you face to face in Harrisburg and in your home offices.

And, to all of you in this room, my message is: We have ten days to make a difference before this proposal becomes law.  We need you to act now.

We have three things for you to do immediately:

1)  Call your legislators now and tell them that you are opposed to the expansion of sales tax to nonprofit arts and culture.
2)  Ask your legislators to deliver the same message to their leadership.
3)  Request a face to face meeting with your legislator (and encourage a board member to join you for this discussion).

And we have two message points for you to drive home:

1)  This will tax people out of our experiences (this is a regressive tax that will be applied to families and underserved constituencies in the same way as to our wealthiest patrons).
2)  Why are nonprofit arts and culture organizations, whose missions are not to make money but to serve the community, being unfairly targeted? (Again, sporting event and movie tickets, and even candy bars are not being taxed.)

In your packet tonight, there will be a handout to help you and your board members deliver this message.  And you all should have received a "Fight the Arts Tax" pledge card on the way in.  Please use this card to tell us how we can count on you to help.

Over the years, the Cultural Alliance has compiled lots of data that shows the breadth and economic impact of our sector.  In the long run, though, legislators don’t fund data; they fund people.  So we need to be able to put a human face on our data.  That’s why we need your presence, your board members' presence, and your stories about the people you serve.

There is no question that we're in the fight of our lives.  Together we will pull out every stop, and the folks in Harrisburg will take notice.  Thank you.