(FORTUNE Magazine) – The arguments swirling about the National Endowment for the Arts seem curiously incomplete. They feature cultural conservatives like Jesse Helms, in a rage about certain now-famous grants for obscene artwork. Also onstage is a broad coalition of liberals and moderate Republicans -- recently joined by President Bush -- who say they are opposed to ''censorship,'' a term they maddeningly equate with failing to fund artists. The coalition is opposing any restrictions on NEA funding authority (although not explaining how you can avoid censorship, as they define it, while allocating limited resources among a limitless supply of grant applicants). Almost totally missing from the dialogue in Washington is a perspective on the NEA that leaps instantly to mind when you view the world from the parterre area at New York's Metropolitan Opera (recipient of $885,000 of federal funds last year). The thought that hits you is one that liberal politicians should logically be screaming aloud: Government funding of the arts is an activity that overwhelmingly benefits the best-educated, best-connected, most sophisticated, most upscale Americans -- the ones best able to pay for art. You don't absolutely have to be at the opera to gain this insight. You will also sense it in any good museum of art (museums get about 13% of NEA direct grants) or at the ballet (dance gets about 10%) or attending a concert (16% for music). Even the most ''public'' of NEA's grants -- those for public radio and TV -- mainly support upper-crust tastes. You can assume that the artists receiving NEA grants are themselves typically middle class. Why is the country's liberal establishment not protesting? Is it afraid of being on the same side as Jesse Helms? Or of losing the artist vote? Or -- we could be getting close here -- of setting a precedent for other middle-class welfare programs?