Establishment reporters don’t seem to think that anything good happens in society without a stream of federal money attached to it. That sort of tunnel vision was on display in a recent Washington Post story about the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). And it was on display again in the Post today in a story about the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

The story discusses NEA projects in Indiana, a state presumably chosen for the same reason that the prior story focused on the ARC and Kentucky: the Post wants to sow dissension in a part of the country that voted for Trump.

NEA-Indiana projects described by the Post include $3,000 for a tunnel made of twisted branches and $10,000 for a sound project that “takes place in multiple spaces and includes a hangout where visitors can listen to records, have a coffee or beer, and will eventually include a low-powered FM radio station.” Numerous NEA grants seem to trickle through state and local governments before being dispensed to local artists and nonprofits, thus creating jobs for paper pushers along the way.

The story warns that the NEA is “under attack.” President Trump “has proposed eliminating the agency altogether.” What a heathen! In Indiana, “artists and nonprofit leaders in small towns or underserved communities fear that lawmakers don’t understand how much they depend on the millions of arts dollars distributed each year outside booming metropolises.”

The NEA’s annual budget is $150 million. Indiana has two percent of the U.S. population, so I would guess that it receives about two percent of NEA funding, or $3 million a year.

If NEA spending in Indiana is important, couldn’t Indiana governments and philanthropists support it? State and local governments in Indiana currently spend $43 billion a year from their own revenue sources. Couldn’t they carve out just $3 million—or 0.007 percent—of that to support local quilters, hoop net makers, puppeteers, and other Indiana craftspeople?

For further reading on the NEA, see here.