Ignorance and political expediency in the execution of a public policy is bad enough when practiced separately. But when the latter flatters and exploits the former, well, it’s a super-toxic brew of trollopy rent-seekers sugared by self-flattering corporate wealthfarists.
It began with a federal administration proposal to slap a 100 percent tariff on any and all foreign-produced films coming into the United States. And it quickly escalated into one state governor – hint, his state is home to Hollywood – proposing a multibillion-dollar federal tax credit for domestic motion picture production.
Slickster No. 1 (SN1) lamented that foreign countries are cleaning American filmmakers’ clocks by subsidizing their flicks. Not that many U.S. states do the very same thing for any moviemaker with a handout. Noooooooooo!
“This is a concerted effort by other nations and, therefore, a national security threat,” said a White House operative in this comical declaration of movie war. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda.”
Never mind the paucity of foreign films making much of a mark in the United States, according to The New York Times: “American-produced movies overwhelmingly dominate the domestic marketplace.”
And as if more than a few domestic motion pictures, many subsidized by your tax dollars over the years, haven’t engaged in “messaging and propaganda,” more often than not in support of liberal and “progressive” causes.
Noooooooooo!
Enter Slickster No. 2 (SN2).
SN2, the La-La-Land governor, proposes “teaming up” with SN1 to create a $7.5 billion federal film tax credit to bolster domestic motion picture production.
As The New York Times also reported it:
“The proposal, if approved, would represent by far the largest single government subsidy program ever for the industry in the United States, and the first of its kind at the federal level.”
As The Times notes, more than three dozen states – including Pennsylvania – “already give out incentives to lure and retain film and television production, but there is no national program, as is the case in some countries overseas.
Nor should there be. Just as there should be no state film tax credits. For it is abundantly clear that the “return” on the taxpayer “investment” is paltry at best
But even if the “return” were something considered “remarkable” — or even somehow “acceptable” — taxpayers have absolutely no business subsidizing a private industry, no matter if it has a very public face.
But the bottom line in this particular case is that a political expedient is attempting to exploit the economically addlepated, each seeking to promote the same misguided economic policy that is a proven flat-liner.
And that only emboldens constantly rent-seeking actors – the Hollywood variety or any other kind – to suckle at the taxpayer teat.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
