Only $25 Million, or, Larcenous Nerds in Chains

Mack Hall

Only $25 Million

Michael Cieply, an entertainment writer based in Los Angeles, reports that the State of Louisiana is looting its taxpayers for over $27 million dollars to help finance Brad Pitt’s next movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Oh, yeah, another Casablanca coming our way.

In 2006, the last year for which a precise amount is available, Louisiana’s film office gave away $121 million in “tax credits,” a euphemism which translates as, well, $121 million.

If a mugger holds you up at gunpoint, you see, he’s not stealing your paycheck; he’s offering you tax credits as an investment in your future.

Mr. Cieply also reports that Louisiana’s former film commissioner, Mark Smith, has been convicted of taking bribes to fake upward film budgets so that studios could enjoy more money wrung from Lousiana workers. He’s going to prison in January, but the studio that bribed him is not only not being indicted, it’s not even being named. Maybe the unnamed, unindicted studio will give Mr. Smith a bit part in a movie named Larcenous Nerds in Chains.

Michigan’s legislature may be stiffing its few remaining workers for as much as $200 million a year (the records are a little unclear, and for bad reason) to encourage movie-making. Presumably the studios will now hire lots and lots of Michiganders with the Michiganders’ own money to make movies. Sure.

Rhode Island paid $2.65 million in “tax credits” for one film, Hard Luck. Yeah, hard luck, Rhode Island workers.

Texas has a film commission too, and a perusal of its web site at www.governor.state.tx.us/film/ suggests that our commission may be more productive than others. The first page of the site lists dozens of jobs available with many film producers, television and radio stations, and electronic programmers. However, when I typed in “budget” on the film commission’s web site I got one of those vague, fuzzy, thank-you-we’ll-get-back-to-you-after-you-fill-out-this-form messages, so I can’t tell you how much you’re paying for the Texas Film Commission.

Some forty states now feature film commissions, and one wonders if there is any ethical reason for this. No theorist of government and finance – Aristotle, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Paris Hilton – has ever codified the concept that working people must be taxed in order to finance state-approved entertainment which the workers can then enjoy only if they pay admission.

People should be free to pursue cultural interests as they think best. If Neville wishes to celebrate the music of Bob Wills, he may use his own money made at his own job to purchase a Bob Wills CD. If Bubba enjoys German opera, that too is his decision using his own money. But neither Neville nor Bubba can lawfully – lawfully -- be taxed in order to fund a private scheme of artistic endeavor which seems to be doing pretty well already.

Heck, we already have to pay up for National Public Radio (which can be received only by people who live near a city center) and Public Television (which most folks in the country can’t receive at all). That tea should have been dumped into the harbor long ago.

Let us of charity (ahem!) give the last word to Anthony Wenson of the Michigan Film Office, who says that this year his department has granted only $25 million in tax credits – meaning $25 million of Michiganders’ money – to film studios.

Only $25 million. Only.