This week Gov. Nikki Haley has proposed to veto the budget for the SC Arts Commission. It is apparently one of the costs she hopes to "drive out of the system."

It is a decision which may cost us much more than we save.

The Arts Commission has always been a tiny part of State Government. It is shared fully in the three years of budget cuts made by our Governor and the Legislature. The proposed state budget provides the agency with 55 percent of the funding it had in 2008, a budget passed just before the banking driven implosion of the US economy.

The Legislature, which is dominated by conservatives, cut the commission's budget by six percent for this year. Actual expenditures will fall by 16 percent since federal stimulus funding to the Arts Commission is ending. It is not a lavish provision.

One of the peculiar proposals made was to make the Arts Commission a part of the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Commission, a proposal ultimately rejected since it would have constituted a change in permanent law not allowed in the budget. It seems to imply that art is only of interest to people who visit South Carolina, not those of us who live here.

The Arts commission Gave $4,174 to the Actor's Company which puts on plays at the Village Playhouse in Mount Pleasant. If the commission survives the Governor's proposed veto, they will receive $3,590 next year. It's likely the nearby Starbucks and three neighboring restaurants paid that much money back as sales taxes on money they made from theater patrons.

If the Village Playhouse is a deal, Spoloto is the bargain of a generation. The Art's Commission's proposed grant for next year is only $16,563. I am convinced that the festival generates that much tax revenue in an hour on a good day. The economic impact is deep. Charleston's tourism season once ended in May. It now continues into June. The value of a hotel, restaurant and shop to the landlord is based on how many customers walk through the door.

State Support for Spoleto has declined over the years as budgets have shrunk, but anyone looking at activity downtown, at hotels and in restaurants during May and June can't mistake the impact the arts have on our economy.

Spoleto faced huge skepticism that first year. It was nearly cancelled. Ticket sales did not meet expectations until a surprising surge in local purchases filled seats. The State of South Carolina put in about 10 thousand dollars with the support of Republicans determined to help the state develop economically and culturally.

If you attended the first Spoleto Festival in 1977, as I did you would have reached it through a Charleston which would not be recognizable to most people living here now. Downtown was full of empty buildings, entire blocks of them. Most of East Bay Street from Broad to Market was shuttered. So where many of the storefronts on Market Street, Meeting and King. State support for Spoleto has varied over the years ranging from 10 thousand for their first year up to grants in the 40s in the 1990s.

Today a walk down John Street downtown brings you to a dozen active businesses. In 1977 it was a wasteland of peeling paint, home to an isolated photo supply business and little more.

However the impact went far beyond the formal arts community. Civic life in Charleston was quiet for most of the year at the time. The calendar of festivals and activities which turn the economic crank here now did not exist. Things from the Oyster Festival to the now massive Bridge Run owe some of their color and creativity to Spoleto.

However the survival of the Arts Commission shouldn't be just about money. It is also a decision about what sort of place South Carolina is going to be. If we become a state which has eliminated all support for the arts, we'll repel creative people. Many of these people live on very little, but they contribute much color and excitement to a community. It is always remarkable to see an assistant Principal or a shop keeper transformed on the stage. A coworker who picks up a violin ceases to merely the person you file with. The neighbor you catch air painting on the sidewalk isn't the person who parks a red car in their driveway any longer. The street is not merely a place to walk at that point. You are no longer merely someone on the way to work.

The assumption of the people supporting the veto is that some charity will just step up and cover the lost grant money.

Nearly every non profit in South Carolina from those feeding the hungry to those doing interpretive dance, have been on starvation budgets for years. The schools and churches come first. Both are struggling with huge decreases in revenue. Human needs follow and every local entity feeding, clothing or treating people is struggling. The arts have a tough case to make and a lot of these organizations are only hanging on.

The proposal to reform out state tax system of the South Carolina Taxation

Realignment Commission was never even considered by the legislature this year. You can read their entire report online, the last is a series of such reports. Perhaps someday we'll sit down as a state and go over the books in a reasoned and thoughtful discussion about what we have to do with the many obscure tax exemptions with cause our state to leak revenue.

Until then we will have to pick between beans and electricity. There is no caviar on the menu. We have to have some of both. We can't let our state starve and we can not work in the dark. Ask you state legislator to continue the modest support the Arts Commission receives by overriding the expected veto.

There is a huge difference between dim and dark.

(William Hamilton (www.wjhamilton.com) is an attorney who lives in I'On Village.)