No Stimulus for You!

As the official numbers on the 2010 Obama budget request are released it is clear that history largely missed out on the stimulus. For most of the programs that benefit history, funding is flat or only slightly increased over previous years. The exceptions are the NEH and the National Park Service, but even there the increases are far short of the billions and billions of stimulus infrastructure being doled out around the country. Some examples from the National Coalition for History:

• The National Archives & Records Administration will get a 1.5% increase from $460 million to $466.9 million.
• Funding for the wonderful Teaching American History grant program will stay at the 2009 figure of $119 million.
• The National Endowment for the Humanities budget will increase 10% from $155 million to $171 million.
• National Historical Publications and Records Commission grants will increase from $9.25 million to $10 million.
• The National Park Service's Historic Preservation Fund will increase from $69 million to $77 million.

History would have been a natural for stimulus funding, with so many worthy digital and oral history projects in need of funding. Some of us called for a new Federal Writer's Project just as Obama came into office. Unfortunately our national organizations remained on the sidelines as the stimulus bill was drafted. We missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!