Republicans

The contrast in priority with the last comparable American stimulus package is simply breathtaking. Funded by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration made the arts a priority. Federal Project Number One -- home of the Federal Writers Project, the Federal Theater Project, the Federal Music Project and the Federal Art Project -- was, believe it or not, the largest of the WPA's endeavors.

Its mission was to give more Americans the chance to experience what Roosevelt called "a fuller life." Its legacy -- from invigorating murals to landscape paintings to the careers of Arthur Miller or Orson Welles -- is everywhere you look.

In less than 75 years, the arts have gone from the single largest priority in a government stimulus package to a toxic joke, with a popular special amendment keeping them out. It is a stunning turnaround.

How did it happen?

[From In economic stimulus package, arts deserve place in line | The Theater Loop - News from America's hottest theater city]