After only two weeks on the job, The Hill reports, Kevin Couch resigned in late January as head of artistic programming at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Couch’s brief tenure might seem surprising, but a better question is why Couch sought or accepted the position in the first place. With a reasonably impressive record dating back 30 years as a drummer, manager, and midwest talent booker, why swim toward a sinking ship?
And a better question yet is: Why bother to keep that ship afloat at all?
In early 2025, US president Donald Trump fired the Center’s board of trustees, appointed new trustees who elected him chairman, then had the building vandalized to add his name. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that henceforth the institution would be known as the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” even though neither Trump nor Leavitt nor the trustees control its name (Congress does).
Since then, most stories coming out of the Center have consisted of “so and so quit,” “such and such artist or act canceled,” etc.
What I haven’t really seen is much in the way of suggestions that it’s a great time to dissolve the “public-private partnership” behind the Center, auction off its assets, and let the private sector fulfill whatever demand might exist for the events typically held there.
Well, fine — I’ll suggest exactly that myself, then.
The Kennedy Center receives about $40 million in taxpayer money for operations, maintenance, and facilities needs, and additional funding for “capital repair and restoration.” That’s the “public” part of the “public-private partnership.”
With a combined seating capacity of about 6,700 across its three major performance venues (the Concert Hall, the Opera House, and the Eisenhower Theater), that comes to nearly $6,000 per year per seat in annual government funding — not including the repair/restoration money.
That’s before hundreds of millions of dollars annually in “private” donations, ticket sales, and so forth.
Oh, and the Center’s endowment is pretty flush, too: It has more than half a billion dollars set aside for a rainy day.
More than 100 million Americans attend live concerts every year, and will continue to do so with or without the Kennedy Center.
More than 25 million Americans attend live stage productions every year, and will continue to do so with or without the Kennedy Center.
So far as I can tell, those web search figures don’t include smaller acts in nightclubs and so forth.
Why are the taxpayers shelling out $40 million per year to do a job the private sector clearly has well in hand?
Instead of arguing about the name, making it a political football, and trying to track down talent to keep an ailing institution in business, cut it loose to sink or sail.
Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
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