Who opposes government arts funding?

While the reasons for the controversy over public arts funding are well-understood, less clear is the set of variables that associates with strong opposition or support for arts subsidies. Using data from the General Social Survey, this paper builds a model to predict opposition based on ideological, economic, and demographic characteristics. The most important predictors of opposition are found to be political views, gender, income, private donations to the arts, and region of residence. The results in this paper suggest that the benefits of public arts funding accrue primarily to those in the highest income class, and that support varies somewhat according to the level of government providing the funding.