Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

August 10, 2016

Fonda & Redford: Hollywood’s New Welfare Mooches

My adopted hometown will soon be the base of operations for a new Netflix movie starring aging elitist hippies Robert Redford (estimated net worth: $170 million) and Jane Fonda (estimated net worth: $120 million). A state economic development commission unanimously voted last week to fork over $1.5 million in taxpayer-funded “incentives” for the liberal duo’s romantic flick, arguing that it will generate “great publicity.” But given the fierce opposition so many men and women in uniform in this proud military community have to Hanoi Jane Fonda, I’ll bet many of my friends and neighbors wish they could pay to keep the traitorous commie propagandist as far away from the Rockies as possible.

My adopted hometown will soon be the base of operations for a new Netflix movie starring aging elitist hippies Robert Redford (estimated net worth: $170 million) and Jane Fonda (estimated net worth: $120 million).

A state economic development commission unanimously voted last week to fork over $1.5 million in taxpayer-funded “incentives” for the liberal duo’s romantic flick, arguing that it will generate “great publicity.”

But given the fierce opposition so many men and women in uniform in this proud military community have to Hanoi Jane Fonda, I’ll bet many of my friends and neighbors wish they could pay to keep the traitorous commie propagandist as far away from the Rockies as possible.

The same goes for Redford, whose last big directing foray was the domestic terrorism-glamorizing hagiography of the Weather Underground movement, “The Company You Keep.”

The Colorado panel’s got a lousy track record when it comes to picking winners. It last dumped $5 million into cop-bashing Quentin Tarantino’s box-office disappointment, “The Hateful Eight.”

On a broader policy level, the entertainment corporate welfare racket should offend all taxpayers.

Government officials make phony-baloney claims that their public-private “investments” will pay for themselves. But study after study, on both the progressive left and the free-market right, shows that the economy-stimulating effect of public subsidies for private corporate preferences (movies, sports stadiums, malls, hotels, you name it) is negligible.

Loan guarantees. Refundable tax credits and rebates. Tax increment financing. Tax-exempt bonds. All of these enticements dangled by thirsty bureaucrats before wealthy developers, sports-team owners and Hollywood moguls who don’t need them amount to blatant redistributions of wealth.

The independent California Legislative Analyst’s Office found that for every dollar California spent on the $100 million annual film subsidy it created in 2009, the state treasury received 65 cents.

In South Carolina, film incentives returned just 19 cents in taxes for each dollar paid out in rebates. That’s “a net loss in revenues equal to 81 percent of expenditures on rebates,” as the Tax Foundation pointed out. Maryland barely managed to recoup 6 cents on every spent on its film tax incentive program.

A Connecticut children’s advocacy group reported that only 11 percent of the $113.2 million of state revenues lost through the film tax credit program subsidized production expenses that were classified as “actual Connecticut expenditures.” Eight subsidized productions received nearly $10 million in tax credits despite reporting zero actual Connecticut production spending.

A 2009 report by the Pennsylvania Legislative Budget and Finance Committee found that the state lost nearly $59 million on its $75 million film tax credit and grant program.

Astonishingly, the conservative Mackinac Center in Michigan determined that the state’s $500 million spent on film subsidies since 2008 resulted in fewer film jobs than when the program started.

And after reviewing Hollywood handout programs in more than 40 states, the left-wing Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that subsidies reward companies for production that would have happened anyway; most of the top jobs “created” by the “incentives” go to out-of-state industry veterans, and the revenue generated by economic activity supposedly tied to the subsidies “falls far short of the subsidies’ direct costs to the state.”

Perspective: The nearly $1.5 billion in direct Hollywood giveaways doled out every year since 2010 by state governments is equivalent to “the salaries of 23,500 middle school teachers, 26,600 firefighters, and 22,800 police patrol officers.”

It’s the same story north of the border. Canadian Taxpayers Federation analyst Jordan Bateman reported that British Columbia’s treasury “likely lost $220 million or more” in public film production funding “that should have gone to education, health care or tax cuts.”

This legalized bribery is a perfect recipe for pay-for-play and political corruption. Hacked Sony emails showed corporate executives embracing five-figure campaign donations to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo because he’s a “strong protector of the film incentive.” Cuomo massively expanded the program, which now doles out nearly an annual half-billion dollars in tax money to entertainment special interests.

In Iowa, six officials were fired or forced to resign over allegations they squandered film tax credit funding on personal luxury goods, including a Land Rover, and steered the subsidies to unqualified recipients.

Louisiana’s top film official went to prison for accepting bribes from a movie producer in exchange for state tax credits.

This whole stinking enterprise is a crime. When Big Hollywood and Big Government conspire to turn Jane Fonda and Robert Redford into welfare mooches at ordinary Americans’ expense, it’s time to yell “Cut!” — permanently.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.