Early in March, Elon Musk received a friendly warning from an unlikely quarter: David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s first Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the prototypical government efficiency czar who engaged in a widely publicized effort to cut government waste back in the early 1980s. Stockman wrote on X: “Hey, Elon! Been there. Done that. The Swamp is far more devious and resilient than you think. Everything you are cutting will be reborn in another guise. I know! But keep at it anyway---America is sinking into a black hole of public debt and the hour is late.” Indeed. And recent news about a wasteful government program that fell victim to Musk’s DOGE is an indication that Stockman was right: the Swamp is resilient, resourceful, and resolute.
The good news came in a Monday report in ArtNet News, the art world’s media organ. It reported sadly that “DOGE Has Decimated the Institute of Museum and Library Services: All employees have been placed on administrative leave and the future of millions in grants seems dim.” Celebrate good times!
The left, of course, will deplore this as the triumph of the yahoos and rednecks over those who can appreciate the finer things in life. But all that really happened was that the Trump administration cut the funding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Why, exactly, should the federal government have an Institute of Museum and Library Services in the first place? It shouldn’t, and this program is a quintessential example of federal overreach and waste.
The world of art is perfectly capable of taking care of itself without federal oversight and funding; after all, it did just that for many centuries even before there was a United States. The program is also an obvious failure: latter-day America hasn’t exactly distinguished itself as a center of artistic achievement, courtesy of the largesse of American taxpayers.
And that money has been doled out in massive amounts, as ArtNet News revealed as it hailed the defiance of Institute of Museum and Library Services employees when the DOGE people arrived: “All 55 or so employees of the agency, which awarded some $266.7 million to recipients all over the country in 2024, showed up to work that day” — was that something that was unusual for them? — “staging an act of defiance against the people who were known to padlock other agencies on arrival. Trump had signed an Executive Order, Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, directing severe cuts to IMLS, which provides resources to museums and libraries in all 50 states and territories, calling for it to be ‘eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law’ within seven days, so an abrupt closure would have been no surprise.”
Wait, it gets better. ArtNet News quotes an unnamed employee: “Today the entire IMLS staff is being placed on administrative leave. They also plan on canceling all 900 open awards to museums across the country. As of the end of March there were 891 open awards to museums with $180 million in federal funds (appropriated in prior fiscal years to support multiyear projects) matched with $185 million of non-federal cost share.” Great. That’s a nice chunk of change to save the taxpayers. And now, “museums and libraries will no longer be able to contact IMLS staff for updates about the funding they rely upon. The 2025 grant application program had already been paused. The status of previously awarded grants is unclear. Without staff to administer the programs, it is likely that most grants will be terminated.” Fantastic.
The American Alliance of Museums lamented: “Placing the entire staff on administrative leave raises questions as to whether the agency will be able to fulfill its legal obligations to disperse congressionally appropriated funding, leaving museums, libraries, and communities across the country at risk of losing vital resources.” It’s unlikely that those resources are really vital at all, or ever were.
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This is a triumph of federal responsibility. Those who oppose these federal agencies don’t oppose museums or libraries; they simply don’t believe that the federal government has any mandate to be involved in such entities, or any need to be involved in them. There is, however, a rather large fly in the ointment. PJ Media reported back in Mar. 2017 that the Institute of Museum and Library Services was listed among “programs that will be eliminated or ‘zeroed out.’” Yet eight years later, here it is, still doling out hundreds of millions of dollars, no doubt much of it to the kind of artists who duct-tape a banana to a wall and call it fine art.
Why does the Institute of Museum and Library Services even still exist? The Swamp struck back, successfully, and completely under the radar. The swamp creatures protect their own. Will this useless program finally see its end now? We can only hope. Musk, however, would do well to heed Stockman’s warning, and give some attention to make sure that the programs he slays stay dead.
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