Some of the recent discussion of the arts and government in the United States has centered on politicization of the arts. The discussion generally involves the Arts Endowment's largess, appointments, and grantmaking procedures. This essay contributes to the discussion by illustrating some of the problems of the government's direct involvement in the arts. The National Endowment for the Arts, created in 1965 as part of the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities, represents the national government's direct involvement in the support of the arts. Legislation, passed decades earlier, had provided a subsidy for the arts in an indirect way by providing tax breaks for donors' contributions and tax allowances for the operation of nonprofit cultural organizations. In this way, the government indirectly supported the arts with the questions of who, how, what, and when to support resting with the donor. This has changed with the government's direct involvement in the promotion and encouragement of the arts. The sticky questions of who, how, what, and when now rest with the National Endowment for the Arts- the agency charged with the responsibility for support of the arts. The impact of the agency has been prodigious. Milton C. Cummings, Jr., a Johns Hopkins University political science professor, claims that no other agency has made a dollar go further and had so much impact.' For example, one index of this impact is the growth of public support at the state and local level. State art agencies, sparked by C. RICHARD SWAIM is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Baltimore. During the spring of 1976 he was an intern-fellow with the research division of the National Endowment for the Arts.