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What can be done for the Arts?

One of my Facebook friends started a conversation inspired by this article  on ideas that Theatres should take up for their survival. The full thread is here . I just wanted to capture one of my own contributions: On supporting artists with our paychecks, I think the best we can do is to fight the economic culture of debt and dependency that we have. Help people learn to get out of debt and build personal wealth, not as a goal in and of itself, but as a means towards the end of enabling more generous giving. I'm a big Dave Ramsey fan, and he talks a lot about giving as the end goal of achieving economic freedom. We've got some great theatre programs for teaching physical health, and mental health. Why not have some support for personal financial health? That's my radical idea. While we're at it, teach aspiring artists to treat student debt like poison. Get an education, but don't get into debt for it. As far as tax dollars, I'm going to make myself very un