Movie Subsidy

The hypothesis here is that when a grown up wonders if the emperor is movie, the validity of the question is a one to one correspondence to the degree of outrage at the mere fact of asking. The grown up in this case is Sen. John Arthur Smith, Deming Democrat and chair of the Legislative Finance Committee. Smith posed the notion of capping the 25% straight state subsidy offered to movie productions. Movie acolytes have gone bananas. 

Smith's proposal is Senate Bill 519. The fiscal impact report is illuminating. Look for it at the legislature's Web site, www.legis.state.nm.us/lcs. The fiscal impact report is fascinating, if a tad complex on a quick read. The state film office asserts that all film activity would disappear with a cap. Like all other claims of the apocalypse, the claim isn't credible. The FIR says, "There is no question that the credit has brought these film productions to New Mexico and significantly increased employment" in a number of sectors. But to what economic avail, over all? The Taxation and Revenue Department agrees with the Legislative Finance Committee that the subsidy may be an overall loser, but the main point from the analysis is that we don't know. The analysis is complex and needs to be thoroughly done.

We, here, know one thing that is unmentioned in the FIR. Having movie trucks, or any other big truck for that matter, parked in front of your store in downtown Albuquerque costs sales. And, no, the lost sales are not made up by sales to movie folk. Nor is the loss in sales compensated for be the movie folk being pretty nice people or the movie thing being pretty cool. We know this because a business owner, a long time friend, told us.