The takeaway from a pair of recent Post-Gazette stories on the City of Pittsburgh’s budget mess is that “secret spending decisions” by the prior mayoral administration “left Pittsburgh’s finances on the brink of crises.”
So much for transparency, which must be the hallmark of sound public policy.
Per the P-G:
“As the new administration [of Mayor Corey O’Connor] delved deeper into Pittsburgh’s budget over the next nine months, it would find a staggering gap between what former Mayor Ed Gainey had claimed about the city’s financial picture and what the numbers actually showed — a chasm that amounted to $250 million over the next five years, far more than the city could cover with its reserves.”
Sound public policy deserves answers. And honesty. Here’s to Allegheny County District Attorney Steve Zappala’s ongoing investigation into the city’s financial dealings finding the former and restoring the latter.
The Express-Times news outlet reported last week that the giant Chobani yogurt company plans to build a $1.2 billion dairy manufacturing facility in Eastern Pennsylvania.
Gov. Josh Shapiro says it’s the largest private-sector investment in the Keystone State’s agricultural history, “projected to create 900 full-time jobs over five years in the Lehigh Valley and expand markets for more than 4,000 Pennsylvania dairy farmers.”
That’s great news.
But if, as state officials said, the new facility, which also will process more than 3 billion pounds of milk annually – about 30 percent of all milk produced in the Pennsylvania – will fuel demand for dairy products, why is so much taxpayer money being thrown at the facility?
As The Express-Times reports it, the commonwealth will provide $50 million in loans and grants through the Pennsylvania Strategic Investments to Enhance Sites Program to support infrastructure and site improvements. An additional $127 million in loans and grants will be available directly to eligible Pennsylvania dairy farmers to meet increased demand.”
Additionally, the news outlet says Chobani “may also access future milk processing tax credits through the Department of Revenue program known as Pennsylvania Economic Development for a Growing Economy.”
Again, if this facility is the supposed be-all and end-all to bolstering demand for dairy products – and thus fueling increased profits for producers and processors alike, why are taxpayers being pickpocketed to help underwrite the deal?
They should not be. Chobani believes it can make a handsome profit with this new project. But it has absolutely no business socializing the risks associated with it in pursuit of that profit.
A Wall Street Journal editorial blasts a plan to make film tax credits a national deal. And rightly so.
As The Journal succinctly notes:
“A federal subsidy for entertainment production on its own won’t create many jobs or enhance U.S. prosperity. It will enrich large Hollywood producers and prop up industry unions, which have struck labor agreements that make the U.S. a less attractive place to shoot TV shows and movies.”
Indeed, as The Journal notes (and as pimps for state and national film tax credits “argue” the need for such credits), “the share of films shot outside the U.S. has increased, though the overall amount of content has also grown. But the industry is also changing because streaming services provide a distribution platform for low-cost productions.
“Film makers no longer need large production companies, big crews or A-list stars to make a splash. Movie ticket sales have fallen some 40 percent since 2019, which makes it more challenging for studios to make money on expensive productions,” the editorial states.
And as The Journal further points out, “(T)he U.S. motion picture and video industry has lost 106,300 jobs over the last four years, 63,400 of them since the beginning of the pandemic. These job losses have notably coincided with the expansion of state tax incentives for film and TV production.”
“Ouch” and “Zinggggg” go the facts that hurt the continuing call for more Hollywood corporate wealthfare.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
