Mr. President, you should rethink that.

After reviewing several different opinion columns I came across Danielle Allen’s “President Trump says he wants to fix our divisions, but he may gut an institution that does exactly that,” in The Dallas Morning News. Danielle Allen speaks out about the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an organization that is dedicated to helping Americans build a shared culture, possibly losing funding with Trump’s proposed budget cuts. She expresses her support of NEH and states that if Trump wants to help fix the divisions in our country, he should rethink his decision to cut the budget for this organization.

NEH was founded in 1965, and it is one of the largest founders of humanities programs in the United States. It has consistently funded digitization of papers of our founding era and leading statesmen and women, as well as many other important historical documents. The NEH also aids veterans through an initiative called “Standing Together. This fund assists veterans in every state in different ways, and has also supported veterans as they go to college. Allen states: Perhaps we are so divided…precisely because we have so profoundly reduced our investment in connective tissue such as the NEH.

I was aware that there were proposed budget to cuts that would affect the Arts, but I had no idea that it would affect an organization like the NEH. To be honest, I was unaware that this organization even existed, but after reading this article I did some research on this organization, and I agree that it is important to bring a shared culture to all Americans. We are currently experiencing a great divide in our country and we need organizations like the NEH. Not only are they helping document history, but they are helping people today to succeed for the future.  I often hear that Americans do not have their own culture, but this organization is trying to document our culture and bring it together.  We are melting pot of people and cultures, and that is what makes our country unique. The decision to rid of the budget for the arts will affect the lives of every American.