One of the greatest cultural dichotomies in America exists between the liberal rhetoric of our entertainment industry, and their dogged insistence on conducting their business as the most hard-charging capitalists imaginable. Hollywood’s business community has absolutely no patience for any of the ideology they would foist on the rest of America. That’s all sucker bait for the masses, promoted by people who have amassed titanic fortunes which largely insulate them from the consequences of their beliefs. If you jeopardize their fortunes, you will quickly discover just how thin and superficial their personal commitment to anti-business liberalism really is.
Case in point: the entertainment industry is currently complaining about how high taxes kill jobs. From the Daily Caller:
Film Works, an entertainment-industry advocate organization, recently launched an online petition asking California’s film and TV enthusiasts to lobby lawmakers to create greater incentives for production to stay within state borders.
While operating costs in California have grown more expensive over the past decade, other states and countries have established film tax credits in an effort to bring production to their territory.
If California does not pass similar legislation, Film Works warns, the state will lose hold of one of its most iconic industries.
“We are now greatly concerned that the state’s status as the epicenter for motion picture production is at risk,” the petition reads.
“If policymakers fail to make our state more competitive, the film industry in California will face the same fate as other industries, including aerospace, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of jobs permanently leaving California for other states.”
Competition? Tax cuts to stimulate growth and investment? Business voting with its feet to flee overtaxed jurisdictions? Wow, who knew that’s how the world worked? Oh, that’s right: everyone except Hollywood stars and the leftist politicians they support.
A growing list of states, including Georgia, Louisiana and New York, have established tax incentives that far exceed those passed in California.
These business-friendly policies have added millions to states’ economies. Louisiana is just one example of this phenomenon. The year before it enacted its tax credit (2002), production spending in Louisiana was only $3.5 million. By 2010, that figure had jumped to $674 million, making for a 19,000-percent increase.
Many leading businesses and organizations involved in the entertainment industry recognize how California’s tax-heavy policies are threatening the survival of the film industry and have thus aligned themselves with Film Works, demanding that California Gov. Jerry Brown sign into law legislation that will re-energize one of the state’s major cash industries.
But everyone else can remain firmly in the clutches of vampire government, right? Just like all millionaires are evil fat cats who screw the little guy to finance their lavish lifestyles, except for Hollywood people who charge the little guy $15 or $20 for a movie ticket, lobby government for special favors, pump billowing clouds of CO2 into the atmosphere they claim to believe is at risk, and use the profit to finance lifestyles so lavish that TV shows are created to chronicle their opulence.
In an age of decentralization, with the rise of virtual sets, why should the motion picture industry sit in California to be devoured by the state’s failing government? Follow-up question: why should any other industry?
