Well I am a sucker. I could’ve made so many millions of dollars by being a lobbyist. But I’m not a scammer, and I don’t like milking problems, I like getting things done. A few weeks ago, I met with the President over clam chowder, and I stressed the importance of getting a 25% federal film tax credit. America’s number 1 export is culture, and America’s number 1 cultural export is cinema. But the problem is, we’ve been exporting the entire industry, not just the product, and we are losing $15 billion dollars in GDP by outsourcing our film productions to Canada, the UK, and Hungary, alone. That means we’re losing out on around $3 billion in tax revenue, but more importantly it’s $15 billion dollars per year that’s going to Canadians instead of to local caterers, building suppliers for set construction, local hotels, drivers, restaurants, extras, location scouts…film production budgets trickle down to so many other local businesses, and we’re giving it away to Canada because they offer more favorable tax rebates.
The President was very receptive to the idea, and today, I was delighted to see him put his full-throated endorsement behind the tax credit in 2 posts on Truth Social. Now, let me share some inside baseball with you guys. The Truth post is a big deal. I’ve been working with multiple Senators on both sides of the aisle, trying to get everyone on board the tax credit. I had outstanding conversations with Democrats who are all eager to get it done. Republicans needed a bit more convincing, but once I showed them the data on how it pays for itself and then some…they got behind it. But you know what they told me was missing? A Truth post; nobody believes it’s real until the President says it on Truth social. I’m not on Truth Social, so I wasn’t really aware of this, but even the President’s detractors respect the power of his voice on his platform.
I had democrats telling me “if you can get a Truth post on it, we can get it done.” Apparently, nobody ever thought of just asking? So…I just asked. And now here we are. The President truthed it, so now it’s real. Immediately, the flood of support washed in from all the politicians eager to put their stamp on it. Ironically, Karen Bass boasting that she’s been working on this for years simply reveals how impotent she is, when all it took me was a few weeks and a bunch of nagging phone calls to the right Senators. I just had a contact in DC tell me “wow I’ve never seen anything get done this fast”…meanwhile, I’ve been pulling my hair out for 2 weeks wondering why this takes forever! People have been working on this issue for years. All I had to do was just…ask. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you’re just considerate of the President. And the President, to his credit, just gets things done. If he likes an idea, he just does it. But that’s not how DC works.
