One of the main reasons other countries spend money on the arts is to promote their homegrown talent. I remember from touring Europe in the early 90's there was a band that would turn up on almost every festival bill called Inchkabotables, or something like that. My faulty memory of them was as being this bizarre 12 piece traditional Laplander folk/prog rock/nu metal band with folk costumes and traditional dancing. Anyway, the story I heard somewhere was that whatever country they were from was paying their way to go spread the word that rock from their country was vibrant and exciting. I wasn't convinced, I thought the rock they were playing was confused and overdone.
So do we really need that? Do we need the US equivalent of Canadian Content? Generally speaking, the rest of the world is trying to emulate
our artistic output. Keep in mind I'm speaking of popular culture here.
As for the 'pure' art that doesn't have a commercial following, We do have the NEA. Maybe we could shut down a few of our military bases around the world and throw the excess millions their way.
http://www.nea.gov/
But having an actual artist as the head of a cabinet level department? That's just stupid. No matter what the bureaucracy is charged with doing, it's still a bureaucracy. Get somebody in there who knows how to run a department.
One last OT thing - what the hell is up with all these Czars? When did we turn into 19th century Russia? The idea of a Czar is that there's no check on their power; which, if I remember correctly from seventh grade, is against the entire founding purpose of this country.