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Harold Hill's Film Credit Follies Thursday Roundup

September 24, 2009

It's been almost a week since the film credit scandal broke, but the news continues to come thick and fast. Yesterday one state agency said that we might be able to wiggle off the hook for our $363 million film credit liability, but today the Iowa Attorney General's Office isn't so sure.

While the Attorney General says we might have just found a way to send $363 million from Iowa to California, he says we should take it calmly:

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller says lawmakers and others should avoid "overreacting" to alleged abuse and mismanagement of a state tax credit program until all of the facts in the case are fully reviewed.

Meh. Overreacting would look something like this:

...and it would be "overreacting" only if they locked the legislators in first. With fire ants and rabid wolverines.

Meanwhile, the political fallout continues. From the Des Moines Register: Rants: will movie scandal break state budget? Too bad he didn't ask that question before he voted for the program.

Like the girl who wakes up with a black eye, big, ugly stranger and a hangover after a night on the town, some of our elected leaders are starting to think maybe the binge wasn't such a great idea:

Culver calls for review of all state tax credits

Governor: review all state tax credits

Vander Plaats calls for tax shift:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats says he would get rid of most state tax credits and instead, cut the state’s corporate tax rate and reduce taxes on business and commercial property.

Trade credits for the corporation income tax? I wonder if anybody has ever thought of that?

Radio Iowa has put together a handy listing of Iowa's "economic development" tax credit programs. Among the two-dozen or so credit programs, six are run by the Department of Economic Development. Does anybody believe that while the film credit was a virtually unsupervised insider looting party, the other credits are all well-run and carefully monitored?

Kathie Obradovich asks: Is there political will to curb tax credits? If this doesn't provide the will, nothing will. She finally comes to the correct conclusion:

A better, longer-term strategy would be to invest in making the overall tax system simpler and more equitable.

I got to ask this question in person to Senator Gronstal this week, and his answer -- which defendend the film program, unbelievably -- shows no indication that he even comprehends how big the film credit mess really is. More on Me and Mike tomorrow.

Meanwhile, out in the blog world, more tax credit bashing. Iowa Independent notes the Charles Bruner piece we mentioned yesterday:

Bruner called the state’s tax credits to industry a “boondoggle,” and singled out the film tax credit as a “huge drain on the state treasury as well as a subsidy lacking in common sense.”

On the right side of the blog aisle, Craig Robinson at The Iowa Republican says Pull the Plug of the Film Tax Credits

Thus far, Republicans are hesitant to call for the end of the Iowa film tax credits. Instead, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Rants has posed a series of questions to help determine what financial impact the scandal will have on the state’s budget. Christian Fong, who is also vying for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, is calling on Governor Culver to move forward with a state website to provide more transparency. Bob Vander Plaats, on the other hand, sees this as another example of state government picking winners and losers.

He says that the Republicans could blow it big time:

While Vander Plaats came the closest to calling for a repeal of the program, Republicans risk being on the wrong side of this issue if they don’t call for the program’s demise.

Gee, do you think so?

Meanwhile, back at the legislature, they have decided there is no hurry to investigate the film program meltdown. Nothing to see here, move along.

Finally, we will take this opportunity to present The Tax Update's Film Credit Hall of Pride, an exclusive club of those legislators out of the 150 in the Iowa House and Senate who voted against the film credit program:

The slowness of the other politicians to realize the full extent of the film credit disaster may be because they just aren't very smart, but it's also because they all were for it before it before they were against it.