Angling for culture and wildlife funding

A proposal to let voters decide whether to raise sales tax for arts and environmental initiatives cleared its first committee in the Minnesota House. The action comes after a companion bill in the Senate failed to advance, a defeat Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller says is "just a bump in the road."

But Minnesota isn't the only state wrangling about how, or even if, to fund the arts. MPR's Cathy Wurzer talked with Morning Edition arts commentator and St. Paul Pioneer Press theater critic Dominic Papatola, who has been looking across the nation at the state of arts funding.