Amid the continuing reality of entertainment business fleeing the Los Angeles area, and California in general, a consortium of Hollywood groups created a petition calling for targeted relief from government revenue collection.
You read that correct–Hollywood wants more tax cuts.
After decades of currying favor with Democrats and endorsing the economic policies of that party Hollywood is looking for its own break from those very restrictions.
The studios, and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, demand a solution that, to the experienced eye, reads very much like a conservative economic platform. The petition comes from Films Works, an entertainment industry advocacy group supported by a combination of studios and various industry guilds. The document hopes to lobby lawmakers to extend and/or expand favorable tax breaks for film and television production.
This is in the hopes of keeping work and jobs in the state. Tax breaks leading to jobs–where has that been proposed?
The reason for this request starts some decades ago when Canada began a concerted effort to lure Hollywood business. Tax incentives and favorable arrangements with unions in that country soon made it far more sensible for studios to create films and television shows across the border. So successful was this effort that Vancouver specifically and Canada in general are known as “Hollywood North.”
In similar fashion Louisiana began offering tax breaks, and that state has been helped with hurricane recovery with an explosion of productions, raking in hundreds of millions since the tax initiative. Meanwhile California has watched work consistently pull out of the state.
Hollywood as an industry operates with an economic structure that defies conventional business practices– something corporations like Coca-Cola, Sony, Time, etc. had to reconcile during their marriages to studios.
In similar fashion Hollywood also exists with attitudes that don’t fit normal social/political constructs. How can one explain monolithic studios frequently portraying corporations as evil in their product? Some celebrities have aligned themselves with the Occupy Wall Street movement against the vile “One Percent” while making millions of dollars for a few months’ work.
Studio heads earn tens of millions annually while they demonize the wealthy CEOs in this country. And politicians fall into their rabbit hole of illogic, with Democrats crying out about corporate money polluting the Republican party, all while jetting to Hollywood to collect campaign donation checks by the bucketful. Now this skewed mentality is having ramifications.
While offering up fantasies the studios found what is on the other side of the camera is a stark reality. They touted liberal economic policies, higher taxes, and government expansion. President Barack Obama is beloved in Burbank’s elite class. Now these titans are begging to be excused from the very scenario they promoted.
It is a problem both self-created and self-perpetuating. While outwardly campaigning on behalf of taxes studios ultimately voted with their checkbooks. When other communities offered beneficial tax rates the studios greedily ran after those dollars. On the surface the problem has an easy solution; the studios could choose to stay home and offer work locally. But they want favorable economic conditions–like those corporations demonized as “greedy.”
This provokes the ultimate of ironies. The liberal elites are seeking refuge in constructs from the right. Running throughout the Film Works website are proposals that sound remarkably similar to the fundamental tenants of conservative economic policy:
Lower Taxes for Job Creation
Obama and the Democrats in Congress routinely ridicule this contention, instead stating taxes are needed to create jobs growth. Yet here is the Hollywood consortium declaring the exact opposite is needed. It is also a position impossible to refute. Hollywood is in this position due to the numerous locales which have benefited from the work acquired through tax incentives.
Offering Businesses Tax Breaks Benefits Everyone
Liberals loathe anyone who dares mention policy approaching the “trickle-down” theory of economics being good for a range of workers. But here Hollywood is begging for corporate financial aid, and even goes so far to supply the statistics. One page on the web site has “Shareable Facts,” which read like a campaign pamphlet for a strident conservative campaign brochure. Detail show how the local economy benefits from film productions.
One such “Fact” states: “Employing one person on a California production will create 2.7 indirect job opportunities for others.”
Growing Employment Will Actually Lead to Increased Tax Revenue
One reality of tax cuts liberals will not acknowledge is an increase in jobs delivers more tax revenue than initially trimmed. Interesting that Film Works mentions this exact detail on their front page: “Runaway production, which is when film and television productions leave the Golden State to shoot in other states and/or nations, (causes) California to lose thousands of middle class jobs and significant tax revenue.”
This is supported by numerous “Shareable Facts” detailing how much tax revenue is created by movies of various budgets, and television programs of differing season lengths.
Ronald Reagan would be proud.
It is staggering to consider the liberal elites in Hollywood are either secretly or unintentionally calling for conservative economics to remedy their situation.
More staggering; these demands are 180 degrees in opposition of the failed economic policies of President Obama, the man they so ardently support.
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