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Michigan’s ‘Hollywood Welfare’ Plan: Stylish Stars Trumping Taxpayers
Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 10/3/2011 | Ken Braun

Posted on 10/03/2011 6:54:09 AM PDT by MichCapCon

If you are like Mitch Albom and still find yourself star-struck and sold on saving Michigan’s 42 percent film welfare program, then consider a hypothetical: The natural gas industry proposes to spend $325 million in Detroit, but on the condition that other businesses and taxpayers be forced to subsidize $136.5 million of that cost.

Does this still sound like a good deal?

There is a difference, of course. When superstar actor George Clooney waltzed through Niles, Mich., last November to scope out a location for a new film, he was well-recognized, and the local media covered it. The potential of his film happening in that town was easy for anyone to imagine – “Look, it’s George Clooney!” – so the prospect of paying 42 percent of his bills was apparently easier to swallow. Similar events in other Michigan towns have happened with other celebrities throughout the short life of Michigan’s film welfare program, though some of those "non-core" communities bring only a 40 percent payback to films shot there.

Would those people be so eager to fork over their tax dollars to help out Aubrey McClendon if he showed up looking to do business in a small Michigan town?

Would they even know who he is?

Do you?

McClendon is the CEO of Chesapeake Energy, one of the nation’s largest natural gas producers. Rather than take money from Michigan taxpayers, Chesapeake has reportedly paid $325 million to some of them in just the last few years for the mineral rights to pump natural gas from underneath their property.

(Excerpt) Read more at michigancapitolconfidential.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: films; hollywood; movies

1 posted on 10/03/2011 6:54:11 AM PDT by MichCapCon
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To: MichCapCon

Michigan is a blue state - of course they would fall at the feet of the Hollyweird types, but consider anything people really need, like energy, to be eeeeeevil.


2 posted on 10/03/2011 7:06:56 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: MichCapCon
I hear that even RINO Christie is tired of subsidizing TV productions like the skanky Jersey Shore... to the tune of nearly a million bucks! It's just another stupid misuse of tax dollars like everything else the government does these days
3 posted on 10/03/2011 8:36:34 AM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Happiness)
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