It's kind of cool to think that Robert Redford can get $50 million inserted into President Barack Obama's mighty stimulus package with just a phone call.

Redford's call last week to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-California, probably didn't do it alone - but it may have been a help in rescuing a $50 million appropriation for the National Endowment for the Arts, according to The New York Times.

The House had approved the NEA money, but the Senate - giving in to Republican grandstanders who consider the arts as elitist leftie timewasters (and who voted against the stimulus anyway) - yanked the appropriation out of the bill. The conference committee that hammered out a final bill put it back in, after arts supporters in and out of Congress made the argument that the arts provide jobs and a boost to the economy.

Redford cited to Pelosi the example of the Sundance Film Festival, a cultural event that celebrates artists - and also pumps an estimated $60 million a year into Utah's economy. "Ticket takers or electricians or actors - all the people connected with the arts are at risk just like everybody else is,” Redford told the Times.

Labels: government, politics, Robert Redford