The U.S. House of Representatives approved a $1.4 trillion national budget that includes $162 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a $7.25 million increase over the previous year. This marks the largest one-year funding bump for the NEA in a decade, despite the Trump administration's repeated proposals to eliminate the agency entirely. The measure passed 297–120 in the Democrat-controlled House and also includes increases for the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and arts-based programs in the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, and Justice.
This funding increase matters because it represents a bipartisan rebuke of the administration's efforts to defund the NEA, which contributes $763.6 billion to the U.S. economy—more than agriculture, transportation, or warehousing, according to a joint report from the NEA and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The budget now moves to the Senate for approval, and its passage avoids a government shutdown while signaling continued congressional support for federal arts funding.