The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is a federal program established in 1965 to promote the arts in America. With a current annual budget of $98 million, the agency makes grants to artists, as well as to museums and other institutions, in order to “foster the excellence, diversity and vitality of the arts in the United States and to broaden public access to the arts.”

In recent years the NEA has been the target of a great deal of criticism. Critics of the agency generally protest the use of taxpayer funding to subsidize works they consider indecent, offensive, or just plain bad. They cite the example of performance artist Karen Finley, who was awarded NEA grants to smear her naked body with chocolate (which represents excrement) to illustrate the mistreatment of women. Citing this and other examples, many...