madam chairman , i move to strike the last word . 
madam chairman , i do not want to rain on anybody 's parade , but in a sense i do . 
what we have just witnessed here is our annual kabuki dance on the question of the arts . 
in the first years that the republicans were in control , they wound up making a very large cut in the arts program . 
i offered an amendment in the appropriations committee to restore a portion of that cut and that amendment was adopted . 
but the majority exercised its power in the rules committee and when this bill went to the rules committee , the rules committee arbitrarily , unilaterally eliminated my amendment which had been adopted by the full committee . 
but then they proceeded to make the exact same amendment in order with one difference : that amendment was to be offered by a republican , because the majority party wanted to have the issue both ways . 
they wanted to be able to tell their right-wing supporters that they had cut the devil out of the arts , yet they wanted and now what we have seen here today is , i hope , not a repetition of what we saw last year . 
because last year , as was pointed out , we had an arts funding level which was $ 49 million below where it was at its high water mark , $ 100 million in real terms after adjusting for inflation below where it had been just a few years earlier . 
an amendment was offered , $ 10 million . 
liberals and progressives argued for it . 
conservatives argued against it . 
the amendment was passed , added $ 10 million , everybody got to put out their press releases ; and , guess what , when we wound up in conference with the senate , 80 percent of the money was stripped out of the bill . 
so the bill was left with a token $ 2 million increase . 
i just have one observation . 
i would hope that if the house wants to demonstrate the slightest bit of sincerity on this issue , that having adopted this amendment , it will stick to it in conference so that something other than a phony kabuki dance has taken place on the floor this year . 
i know that is quite a bit to expect given the hypocrisy that often accompanies conferences and given the penchant for so many members of either body to try to pose for political holy pictures on some of these issues ; but nonetheless i would like to express the vain hope that on occasion some sincerity will be displayed on this issue and that if the house adopts an amendment , it really means it . 
