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national politics & policies subsidy tax policy

The New Hollywood?

Hollywood, entertainment, Washington DC, democracy, subsidy, tax break

It may be the president’s goofiest idea yet.

His Monday brainstorm was for the federal government to get into the movie business. In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump floated the notion of creating a “Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America.” So this isn’t exactly a socialist proposal — where the government would seize the means of production and go about making movies — it’s a subsidy proposal: tax breaks; to “benefit ALL of America.”

Trump posts as if he has worked the math out, where the booty the government loses in direct taxation “will be made up tenfold by the money pouring into the Treasury’s coffers.”

A familiar rationale. But does it work? Do tax credits incentivize producers so much that taxes downstream of the productions make up for all the bother and paperwork?

Well, no need for theory. States already have such programs.

Tosin Akintola, in his Reason article — “State Film Subsidies Lose Money. Trump Wants To Try the Idea Nationally.” — found that “the film and TV industry in eight states returned between 3 cents and 31 cents for every dollar.” 

Entertainment projects do not create that many jobs.

We used to talk about the states as “laboratories of democracy,” by which we meant “laboratories for policy.”

The point isn’t to take the failed experiments and run them at the federal level, hoping for something different.

Sure, Hollywood is lame. But don’t make Washington the new entertainment capital of the world. It’s doing bad enough as the capital of more serious business.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Hollywood, entertainment, Washington DC, democracy, subsidy, tax break

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Thought

Kit Marlowe

What strange arts necessity finds out.

Christopher Marlowe, speech of Venus in Dido (c. 1586), Act I, scene i, line 169.
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Today

Odoacer Rex

Odoacer

On September 4, A.D. 476, child emperor Romulus Augustulus (Dominus Noster Romulus Augustus Pius Felix Augustus) was deposed by barbarian soldier (and Arian Christian) Odoacer, who proclaimed himself “King of Italy,” yet represented himself as the client of Zeno, the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople.

September 4, 476, is the traditional end date for the Western Roman Empire.

Categories
litigation tax policy

Humbled in Humboldt County

Humboldt County, property rights, Institute for Justice

For years, the county clobbered property owners with fines of “$10,000 or more per day for offenses they did not commit,” reports the Institute for Justice, which has represented several of the harassed residents.

More than 1,200 property owners in Humboldt County, California, were hit with such fines for growing pot despite only one form of evidence: old satellite images of their property. Followed by, often, no further investigation.

Among the victims: Corrine and Doug Thomas, whom the county charged more than a million dollars. They were also supposed to pay $200,000 to demolish a barn near their home because a prior owner had grown marijuana there. Another owner, Blu Graham, tried in 2018 to get a hearing to show that his greenhouses contained vegetables, not marijuana. As he waited year after year, the fines piled up.

Finally, in 2022, these and others targeted by the county sued in federal court with IJ’s help.

After some ups and downs, a court of appeals affirmed the plausibility of the plaintiffs’ claims, and the prospect of a trial motivated county officials to settle.

The county has withdrawn the fines, retracted the arbitrary allegations, and agreed to give owners 30 days warning in which to counter an accusation before the county acts further. No fines are to be levied until a case is decided. New owners cannot be punished for what previous owners did. Etc. 

And the county must pay the plaintiffs’ litigation costs.

This is Common Sense. Let’s hope it sticks.

I’m Paul Jacob.

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Cassirer

Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretense, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging.

Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (1944), Ch. 1, p. 31.
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Today

San Marino

On September 3, A.D. 301, San Marino, one of the smallest sovereign political organizations in the world and the world’s oldest still-existing republic, was founded by Saint Marinus.

San Marino is bounded on all sides by northeastern Italy.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall litigation partisanship

Maddened in Michigan

Michigan, petition, initiative, deadlock, democracy, voting

“It’s not every day that Michigan’s bureaucracy violates state and federal law while disenfranchising more than 700,000 Michigan voters,” opens the legal brief filed in the Michigan Supreme Court last Thursday by Americans for Citizen Voting – Michigan. “But that’s exactly what happened [last] week.”

The group (which I chair) has worked for the last year to place the Citizen Only Voting Amendment on Michigan’s November ballot. It makes two basic reforms: requires the Secretary of State to check the voter rolls, identifying and removing noncitizens in a fair process, and requires photo identification to cast a ballot.

Last week, the Board of State Canvassers, two appointed Democrats and two appointed Republicans, deadlocked repeatedly, 2-2, on counting petition signatures even when they agreed that the signer was a registered Michigan voter, and then, on whether to certify the issue for the ballot. 

“The initiative’s sample was left just three signatures short of certification for the ballot,” Sen. Ruth Johnson explained in The Detroit News, “after Democrats on the board refused to count the signatures of nine Michigan voters whose identities had been verified by a notary public, and who signed affidavits under penalty of perjury that the signatures on the petitions in question were theirs.”

“These are real affidavits from real people who are real voters who signed these petitions,” Republican Board Chair Richard Housekamp implored his two Democratic colleagues. 

“The signature matches,” acknowledged Democratic Vice-Chair Mary Ellen Gurewitz, “but whether it should be counted . . . um . . . I think we should decide later.”

“So, you’re going to hold the voter hostage is what I hear you saying,” Housekamp replied.

“You should not have to stop to check the count,” wrote Johnson, a former Secretary of State, “before giving credit for a signature you have already acknowledged is valid. . . .

“Two unelected members of an obscure state board,” she concluded, “cannot be allowed to strip away the constitutional rights of nearly one in 10 adults in our state who signed a petition to place this issue before voters.”

That’s why we and the 700,000 Michiganders who signed our petition want our day in court. Left without any response at all from Michigan’s Democrat-dominated Supreme Court, on Monday we filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Yesterday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh ordered the Michigan Secretary of State, Bureau of Elections and Board of State Canvassers to respond to our appeal by noon today. Our day is coming.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Francis Bacon

Ne mireris, si vulgus verius loquatur quam
honoratiores; quia etiam tutius loquitur.

Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.

Francis Bacon, Exempla Antithetorum, IX. Laus, Existimatio (Pro.), Book I, v, 8.

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Today

Roman Republic Ends

On September 2, 44 B.C., Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declared her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion. On the same day of the same year, Cicero launched the first of his 14 Philippicae (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. Just a few years later on the same day, in 31 B.C., the Battle of Actium ended off the western coast of Greece, where forces of Octavian defeating troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Thus ended the Roman Republic, with the consolidation of power by Gaius Octavius (Octavian; Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus), though he was not renamed “First Citizen” Imperator Caesar divi filius Augustus until January 16, 27.

Categories
ideological culture too much government

Shirkers of the World, Unite

socialism, freedom, control, democracy

“Now it is our turn,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders told the crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, last Friday, celebrating the 63rd anniversary of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington speech. 

Socialist Sanders was followed by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

“We the people demand guaranteed healthcare for every American as a right and not a privilege,” insisted AOC.

“We the people of the United States of America demand that one job with no need for overtime,” she declared, “should be enough for our most basic needs.”

Then Ocasio-Cortez added, “Which also include rest.”

“Exactly,” remarked Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, “We became number one in the world by resting and not working overtime.

“Right behind her is an army of socialist foot soldiers,” Kilmeade continued, “ready to work 30 hours and then take a break.”

That army is the Democratic Socialists of America — to which AOC had just re-upped her membership.

“Imagine taking a day off from work,” reads their program’s very first message, “in a future without capitalism.” You see, in that socialist utopia just around the corner, “You enjoy your work; it’s interesting to you” and “you would control your own labor” and it would never be “just a job to pay the bills.” 

The promise of socialism fulfilled at last.

“Speaking of bills,” the DSA assures you won’t “really have them anymore.” And there will be “no debt”! Why, you won’t even “pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right.” Simple as that, plus, “Your retirement is publicly funded.” 

Sure sounds like they’re going to take care of us real nice. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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