by David Boaz

About the author: David Boaz is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Editor’s note: The following viewpoint was prepared for delivery at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts on May 3, 1995.

Art historian Alice Goldfarb Marquis wrote in the New York Times,“Twice in one recent week, my concert program contained a flyer headlined ‘Warning! The performances you enjoy could be canceled!’ This referred, of course, to the National Endowment for the Arts, presented as a pure virgin cruelly lashed to the railroad tracks.”

The good news for the NEA, I suppose, is that on most of my recent train rides I’ve been presented with flyers reading, “Warning! This train could be canceled!” So maybe the...