Michael Moore Seeks Subsidies from MI Taxpayers
"It is baffling to see the state of Michigan offer filmmaker Michael Moore a refundable tax credit for his documentary "Capitalism: A Love Story." This subsidy should be rejected by Moore on principle alone. Moore's acceptance of the Michigan film incentive subsidy is troubling because he has grown wealthy railing against corporations and capitalist institutions - such as Wall Street - for enriching themselves at the expense of the little guy and taxpayers.
In the trailer for "Capitalism: A Love Story," Moore shows up on Wall Street and says, "...we're here to get the money back for the American people..." This is in reference to the high-profile bailout of big banks (and other institutions) by the federal government. By accepting a state subsidy, Moore, who shows disdain for private, for-profit businesses raiding the pocketbooks of Americans, engages in this very practice himself.
Even more galling is that Moore is set to feed on Michigan's beleaguered taxpayers. The Great Lake State has had the highest unemployment rate in the nation for 46 months and currently stands at 14.6 percent. As measured by state Gross Domestic Product Michigan has experienced a lost decade of economic growth. Worse, our per-capita personal income rank among the states has plummeted from 23rd to 37th since 2003. Not since the Great Depression years have the incomes of Michigan residents been so comparatively low. We are becoming a poorer state with each passing year.
It is against this backdrop that Moore - with his every-man theatrics - asks the taxpayers of Michigan to subsidize his work and by extension his life. He should not. Doing so just smells like a conflict of interest and it makes this award-winning filmmaker appear hypocritical and insensitive to the plight of Michigan's taxpayers."
~Michale LaFaive of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy
17 Comments:
This is a bit rich.
But then, our own Dr. Perry has his salary, pension and health care paid for by the taxpayers of Michigan too.
I invite Dr. Perry to join me in the private-sector taxpaying world. And I invite Michael Moore to make his pictures and pay his taxes too. BTW, Moore's film on GM and Flint is still a classic.
Moore's shot in his Iraq movie, of the Bushes hobnobbing and kissyfacing with Saudi sheiks, and Bush Sr, calling the sheiks his close friends and family, is simply to good to miss.
Benny:
I am no longer receiving a salary, pension or health care from the University of Michigan.
"I am no longer receiving a salary, pension or health care from the University of Michigan"...
Feel better now pseudo benny?
ROFLMAO!
Prof. Perry, I hope your return to U of Mich/ Flint next year. Your high level of education and scholoarship isn surely needed in that beleagured state. My university education was in a very left-wing setting but was rescued in my senior year by an introduction to Milton Friedman -- it was an "Ah-Hah" time for me.
Benny, does well in attacking subsidies but conflates private gain subsidies with high level education. Oh well, he rides on the coat tails of those who fight for his freedom of "expression".
Correction: ...I hope you return to U of Mich/Flint next year. Your ecucation level and scholarship is surely needed in that beleagured state.
Yikes, I am tired, but Benny's remarks got to me and I had to write something righ away,
"Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan."
This is from your bio, on your blog, next to your rather handsome photo.
It would be reasonable to deduce from this description that you are a University of Michigan employee.
In any event, I am glad you have joined the private-sector (if you have). The less people on government payroll, the better!
Benny,
He's on sabbatical, apparently.
Michael Moore Isn't The only Hollywood Freeloader
The Empire State Film Production credit subsidizes movie and TV productions in New York State. It’s an expensive corporate welfare program whose costs are unjustified, and it should be abolished. A similar program subsidizing production of TV commercials should also be ended.
The film credit equals 30 percent of “below the line” production costs for film and television series in New York State. New York City provides an additional 5 percent credit for productions within its borders. “Below the line” expenses generally include all production expenses incurred in New York except payments to writers, directors, producers, and performers with speaking roles.This credit is fully refundable against both personal and corporate income taxes, meaning that producers may receive credit payments in excess of income taxes due to New York State. As such, while the program operates through the tax code, it is economically indistinguishable from a simple subsidy program for film production.
And it’s an expensive subsidy program: the state budgeted $515 million for credits in 2008 and allocated all of it to 120 projects within a year. With New York facing its greatest fiscal crisis since the Depression, Governor Paterson and legislative leaders authorized an additional $350 million. In announcing the renewal, Paterson’s office touted the program’s “enormous success,” as though giving away free money to a favored industry is a surprising or difficult feat.
Supporters argue that the program creates jobs. On a gross basis, this is true, just as a negative 35 percent tax rate (on gross expenditures) for any industry would create jobs in that industry. What’s not seen is the jobs and economic activity that are lost because New Yorkers must be taxed an extra $4 million for every production the program “brings” to the state—some of which would have been shot in New York anyway, as the TV series Law & Order has been since 1990. At that kind of expense, New York taxpayers should at least be getting a share of profits (or what Hollywood producers would call “backend points”) on these productions, instead of serving as uncompensated partners.
EmpireCenter
I'd be happy to subsidize Michael Moore's move to Cuba, as long as he turns in his U.S. passport. I'll even kick in for "Benny".
Benny:
do you really believe that cuban health care system is better and cheaper (!) than in US?
do you really believe that here in europe we are richer than US?
do you know ANYTHING about problems with health care in europe? because I do, I live in Europe, in state with one of the best health care in Europe (according to OECD stats.) and let me tell you something- it is so uneffective, so expensive and so unsustainable that you can hardly imagine. but of course, you can live in your dreams how european health care system is awesome. I dont know what job you do and how much do you make. But I will bet you right here right now, that if you spend the same money for health insurance in US every month as you would pay for Health care taxes and fees back here, you will get the best health care which US can provide.
Maybe we can get a subsidy for "Hillary the Movie"
States shouldn't be subsidizing movies, Clint Eastwood's or others.
But, if one state subsidizes, others feel they have to match.
Sort of like football or baseball stadiums. Free advertising for the city or state.
Sabbatical?
But doesn't a professor remain on payroll, continue to earn pension benefits and get health care paid even while on sabbatical?
I thought a sabbatical was seven months to a year off from regular duties, in order to pursue new research or interests and take a break.
Dr. Perry will have to clear up the mystery.
As to the sudden and mysterious intrusion of "Cuba" and "health care" into this string of posts, I will say that no, I do not believe Cuba has better health care than we do.
I suspect care is better in Japan and many European nations, and I know you can get better care in Thailand if you have the money. I have had two operations in Thailand, and care was most impressive--much better than my experiences in US hospitals.
Just telling it like it is.
I have had two operations in Thailand ...
The only operations they perform in Thailand are lobotomies and gender reorientations. Which ones did you get? Oh, that's right, you got two.
I suspect care is better in Japan ...
A Japanese blogger explains how Japan's national health care system works:
A few days ago, my 77 year old father, who lives in Japan, fell and couldn't get up for more than an hour. He was taken to a hospital, where he still rests.
Last night my mother called to update me with a summary of his condition: He has a compressed disk, it seems (it's hard to translate from Japanese to English and from Mom-speak to ordinary human language). The condition is somewhat serious but not life threatening; he'll have to spend a few weeks in hospital. Too bad; New Year's is the biggest holiday season in Japan.
I'm sure everyone reading this post knows that Japan has socialized medicine (national health care, single-payer, however you want to call it). It's not as draconian as the NHS in the United Kingdom or the Canadian national and provincial health-care system; but it is universal -- everyone must pay for government insurance. Fortunately, those who are well off can also buy private insurance in addition... and they can use that instead of the government system (unlike in the UK or Canada).
In other words, Japan already has the system that proponents of ObamaCare eventually want to install here in America. So let's take a look at how it works in the real world.
Follow the link for the all the pathetic details.
Big Lizards Blog
Moore is taking subsidies while bashing loans. I'm stunned. He certainly is fat, but not a cat, and not a banker. So I guess that's ok.
It didn't surprise me that the media bent over backward to point out the loans to GM and Chrysler were loans and not bailouts, while at the same time calling TARP a bailout.
At the end of the day, the "loans to GM and Chrylser" certainly turned out to be a bailout (for the unions). TARP has had pretty good repayment success for a government loan program.
The stimulus and other flat out giveaways, people don't bash the recipients, but take a loan and be one of the evil groups and bashing is ok.
> who shows disdain for private, for-profit businesses raiding the pocketbooks of Americans, engages in this very practice himself.
Liberal.
Hypocrite.
...but I repeat myself.
> Benny "Look How Far My Head Goes Up My A..." Man bleated:
> This is a bit rich.
That you didn't recognize Moore's fakumentaries for the crap they are isn't any surprise in the least, Benny.
Anyone with the intellect of a rubber tire knows what a load of falsehoods, crank ideas, outright misleading fabrications (like the whole "go in, walk out with a gun" bit in, what, B4C, iirc?) and other absurdist garbage ALL his films are.
Leading one to grasp what any reader of your commentaries already knew: you lack the intellect of a rubber tire.
> do you really believe that cuban health care system is better and cheaper (!) than in US? do you really believe that here in europe we are richer than US?
Never let it be said that Benny's credulity was strained by anything.
He believes Michael Moore's films are the product of a starving artist striving for quality, for example.
> Benny, do you ever feel like an ass?
No, that would require the intellect of a rubber tire to grasp.
> Oh, that's right, you got two.
What did "he" get "his" gender reassigned to the second time? Was it something earthly? Or is he now something from Another Planet? That WOULD explain a lot.
I ask that because I doubt if a lobotomy would have had any noticeable effect -- you have to have a brain to lobotomize, right? -- so I'm assuming that he didn't need one of those.
Anon@12:33 -- I do wish you would pick a name, so I wouldn't have to figure out if it was you or the asshole.
;-D
You really didn't believe this guy is for real did you? Macanac center and all. Yep; pigs do fly.
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