Culture and Arts just another job creator and state money maker not supported by Republicans. Mining sand though....

When Scott Walker turned down the money to build a high speed rail system from Chicago to Minneapolis, he dashed any hopes that Wisconsin and Illinois could have shaped an economic Midwestern hum between Milwaukee and Chicago.  Imagine the growth in and between the two cities. 

The same can be said of mining. Instead of supporting our the natural resources that make our state a vacation wonderland, we're giving it away to mining companies instead.

What's next? The enemy of the right wing: Culture and the arts. It's a big job creator and huge revenue source. But Republicans hate it with a passion.

Walker supports the arts?

Cap Times-Mike Ivey: With their respective governors at opposite ends of the political spectrum, the differences between Wisconsin and Minnesota seem stark. And nowhere is the difference more glaring than in state support for the arts.

Minnesota has long been a leader in that regard and ranks No. 1 in the nation in spending $6.36 per capita on its state arts agency. Compare that to Wisconsin, which has now fallen to No. 47, funding its Art Board at just 13 cents per capita, according to new figures from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

 Volume One: “From music to theater to the visual arts, the Twin Cities is a cultural Mecca … a great deal of it also has to do with a gap in attitudes between the civic leaders of the two states — a philosophical divide wider than the physical one formed by the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers.”

While Walker wants to safeguard Republican politicians from recall elections with a constitutional amendment, Minnesota did something a bit more constructive:

Minnesotans … in 2008 approved a constitutional amendment to divert a portion of sales tax revenue for 25 years to arts and the environment.

Wisconsin is missing out on the financial benefits of arts-related tourism … cites a study showing that nonprofit arts groups and their audiences directly spent $535 million in Wisconsin in 2010 versus an estimated $1 billion in Minnesota.

Anne Katz, executive director of Arts Wisconsin says “the arts are not only good for the fundamentals of the human condition but are also part of building a new economy” … Walker cut funding for the Wisconsin Arts Board from $2.4 million to $850,000 while rolling it into the Department of Tourism.

This should tell you all you need to know about this lost source of business:

Here are the top five states in per capita spending for the arts
 ·    Minnesota   ·   Hawaii   ·  Maryland   ·  New York    ·   Wyoming
 ... and the bottom five
  ·    Arizona     ·   Wisconsin    ·  California    ·  Kansas      ·  Georgia