The reason behind Paul Ryan’s Budget, to cut funding for the arts, is “hypothetically justified” according to Ryan, because it will eliminate the “political interference” that those programs provide—as if the “political interference” is somehow a broader problem [in America]. If you are trying to illustrate circular logic to your students, this is a very good illustration of it.
Ryan’s budget proposals would have a net economic effect comparable to eliminating several major employers—the equivalent of GM, Ford, GE, and Exxon-Mobil all going bankrupt—over the space of a decade. The budget eliminates funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, completely discounting the very low cost and very high impact of those programs, especially on communities outside of the largest urban areas.
Excerpts from: https://academeblog.org/2014/04/10/the-ryan-budget-higher-education-and-political-partisanship
