Bank CEOs and executives: you get our money. Museums, theaters, performing arts centers: forget it. You get nothing from our national economic stimulus bill. You, arts, are "wasteful and non-stimulative."

That's the message the U.S. Senate sent—including, among others, Dianne Feinstein (??), and Washington Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell—by voting Friday on an amendment to Obama's economic stimulus bill intended "To ensure that taxpayer money is not lost on wasteful and non-stimulative projects."

The amendment was written by a classic Republican arts-hater who once tried to revoke federal funding for the Olympic Sculpture Park, conservative Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn. Meanwhile, Patty Murray is too busy fighting for the widely criticized F-22 to think about much else.

LAT critic Christopher Knight thinks he knows why Congress hates the arts. Hint: It's partly because of secks.

This amendment could still be struck from the bill, when it goes to a joint Senate-House committee, even if the Senate passes the bill with it first (the Senate is widely expected to vote tomorrow). So write your Congresspeople.