Philip Hackney (Pittsburgh), Arts Tax Policy: Democracy or Plutocracy?, 60 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2026), U. of Pittsburgh Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2026-13, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6511360 

The United States National Endowment for the Arts’ budget in 2024 was $207 million; in the same year the United States spent roughly between $2 and $3.35 billion on art through the charitable contribution deduction. Over 90% of those deductions came from people earning more than $200,000, while 65% came from those earning more than $1,000,000. Is there justification for Congress to provide charitable tax benefits including tax exemption to support arts-based nonprofit organizations this way? This Article finds no theory of justice supports this policy as currently designed. Though tax scholars typically consider factors of efficiency or equity, neither resolves this question. We need a theory of political justice. The charitable tax subsidies fail because no theory justifies allowing wealthy interests the primary say in what art the country supports, and because the current design is unlikely to fix any market failure. Underlying both failures is the neutrality principle of liberal democracy: the state should not privilege one form of the good life over another. This is a principle the tax literature has largely ignored. Though art can serve genuine democratic purposes by developing the reflective and communicative capacities citizens need for self-governance, that case requires art policy to be determined through inclusive democratic deliberation rather than wealthy donor preferences. Judged against the standard of democratic perfectionism, the current structure substitutes plutocracy for democracy in a domain where democratic deliberation is what political justice requires.