We've heard that the National Endowment for the Arts will be reduced and/or be eliminated under Trump's administration to balance the budget. However, they only receive about $148 million per year, which is well under 1% of the federal budget. On the other hand, there have been massive speculations that the security at Trump Tower costs roughly $182 million per year. It costs many New York taxpayers lots of money just for that.

It is tremendously unnecessary for the NEA to be defunded and/or eliminated because it hardly does anything to the federal deficit. The NEA has helped fund many people who participate in the arts, expand their horizons of imagination, and develop a culture and identity.

As an artist, this planning is considered a personal attack on my culture, my professional career and my freedom of speech. As artists, we are in charge of telling stories about culture, life and identity, guiding people to the light, and creating practically everything.

As artists:

We are your universal language that brings everyone together.

We are your music–you listen to on the radio.

We are your entertainment–you watch television and plays.

We are your technology when you need to do everything.

We are your educators when you cannot read or write.

We are your guide when you stop at the stop sign.

We are your growth when businesses need to make it to the top.

We are your storytellers when you don't know what is happening.

We are your identity when you struggle over who you are.

We are your designers who influence what you wear every day.

We are your houses, where you live every day.

We are your food, what you eat every day.

We are your escape when life gets too hard.

We are your benefactors that make the world progress.

We are everything you live, breathe, listen to, touch, and taste.

Without funding from the NEA, you can expect everything you experience to go down the hill. By reducing and eliminating the NEA, millions of jobs might disappear, many accessible archives might be lost, and history and culture might no longer be sustained. Technology could be delayed and held back while other countries advance and succeed.

Without artists, there will be fewer American-owned businesses. This may seem like a stretch, but many foreign countries could take this opportunity to sell their products in the U.S. because they have artists who are responsible for making clothes, cars, applications, technology and pretty much everything.

Who knows? Maybe we could be the first talentless country in the world.

Welcome to the Trump Art Purge.