To the editor:

Gov. Brownback wants to eliminate the Kansas Arts Commission. He claims it’s frugal. In a state facing a huge deficit, it’s hard to disagree with frugality. As a state employee who may face a 7 percent pay cut, it’s hard to disagree with frugality. Nevertheless, I disagree.

The arts are critical to our survival. We face problems that don’t have purely technical solutions. Diseases know no borders — social, physical, biological. Violent ideologies threaten civil societies everywhere. Global climate change is, well, global. To be sure, efforts in science and technology can discover cures, develop alternatives, test theories. But successfully implementing technical solutions requires changes in our collective behavior that in turn rely on cultural insights. Such insights are born from the arts.

Still, why should the government fund the arts? For the same reason government should fund the sciences, defense, the judicature, etc. These public efforts assure the steady, fair, adaptive and measurable advancement of our society. If citizens aren’t healthy, secure, free and educated they can’t be productive. Beyond productive, though, the arts, like the sciences, help assure we are an adaptive society ready to meet tomorrow’s challenges.

By eliminating the KAC, Gov. Brownback weakens the state’s ability to provide a sound foundation for its citizens and leaves us less capable of designing and implementing desperately needed solutions for the future. Penny wise, pound foolish. Gov. Brownback, restore funding to the KAC. I’ll take the pay cut if it helps ensure a better future for my son and the world he will live in.