CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY | PHOTO BY JOSHUA FRANZOS, TREEHOUSE MEDIA

As we progress through 2025, local organizations have begun to feel the impact of funding cuts in Washington.

Throughout the past week, WESA reported that money promised to organizations including the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens has vanished, a result of the federal decision to defund the National Endowment for the Humanities. A grant awarded for the preservation of the Maxo Vanka murals in Millvale has also evaporated due to cuts to the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Rational minds can have a discussion about the role and scope of government funding in civic institutions. I’d make a strong argument that we are better off with robust, well-funded museums, libraries and cultural centers, and any amount is a small price to pay to enrich our communities; I understand, however, that there are differing opinions on the matter.

What strikes me, though, is that these cuts are utterly pointless.

The stated point of such belt-tightening is to save taxpayer money. That’s a popular phrase, obviously, and it springs from a distant whisper of truth; undoubtedly, there are areas of waste and bloat in the federal budget.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the numbers involved in these cuts. The full budget of the National Endowment for the Humanities is $207 million; the similar National Endowment for the Arts has a budget of about $210 million. The Institute for Museum and Library Services has a budget of about $267 million.

Combined, those three agencies represent a little less than $700 million in federal spending. The entire federal budget for 2024 was $6.8 trillion.

Here, I’ll do the math for you: $700 million is 0.0001% of the annual federal budget.

Numbers can be hard to wrap your head around, so let’s put that another way: Say I handed you $68,000. Then I asked for $7. That’s the proportion we’re talking about here.

If those three organizations were completely scrapped — if their budgets went to zero overnight — the federal government would save 0.0001% of the money it spends in a year. If those savings went straight to the taxpayer, the average taxpayer would save … about $1.22.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll part with $1.22 each and every year to fund museums and libraries. You know what: Round it up to $2, I’m good for it.

Funding for these organizations is such a drop in the bucket that quibbling over them is simply not worth the time and effort; we are killing jobs, disrupting beloved places and ending good programs for savings that amount to a grain of sand in the desert.

What’s more: It’s worth pointing out that there is no actual proposal to get that $1.22, or any of the money being cut from the federal government, back to the taxpayer. No one is sending refund checks; no proposals have been made that could lead to these savings actually getting back to the people.

In other words: Cutting funding to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Phipps and thousands of similar organizations around the country doesn’t actually save a meaningful amount of money; that money isn’t coming back to you … and even if it did, it’d be about a buck.

So then: What the hell is the point?