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Im not asking you to ignore it, I'm asking to know all the facts before we get rid of a program that is likely very beneficial to the state.
People have been trying to get that info ever since the subsidy was first suggested, but
the industry and the state government have fended off any serious discussion or review
for years.
So we should continue to give away approximately another $30M on a subsidy that can
not demonstrate that it is either necessary or productive?
If spending $60M gets us back $70M in gross income, we'd be better off placing that money
elsewhere. My guess is that if it returned anything approaching a 10-15% net gain, both
the industry and the state government would have fallen all over themselves to publicize
that. Since they've gone to some lengths to do just the opposite, I doubt that we see
very much of anything from it.
Let 'em prove it actually makes sense. If they can't, cut it to 20% for one year to allow
a thorough study and then, if it is still conjectural, drop it completely.
NM is the #1 filming location in the nation! What are you talking about?
So, if it's that desirable, every studio is going to go elsewhere? No one will shoot movies
here?
Do you really think that NM is so deficient as a filming location that $60M in total subsidies
is all that brings the studios here? That they'll go to Vancouver at 3 times the daily overhead
costs just out of spite?
"The subsidy program refunds film makers 25 cents for every dollar spent making movies in New Mexico, a rebate that cost taxpayers about $65 million last fiscal year."
My question is, is it 25 cents for every dollar spent in New Mexico?? If the answer is yes then the film makers spent $195 million here last year.
I'm going to guess the answer is no and the bulk of the spending is spent out of state.
If they made the subsidy for only money spent in New Mexico then I am all for it.
My question is, is it 25 cents for every dollar spent in New Mexico??
Who knows? No real auditing has been done; NM is just paying out based on a summary
that is highly suspicious.
And we're just talking about the subsidy.. there's also the loan program which has pumped
out over $240m for a gross return of MAYBE $800k; for the math challenged, that's about
1/3 of 1 percent rate of return and the majority of that was based on an insurance pay-off
when one film company defaulted on the loan.
AND there hasn't been any auditing of the profitability of the films that have received loans,
a significant problem as NM is supposed to actually share in that profitability.
Oh, yeah, no wonder "NM is the #1 filming location in the nation!"
It still might be a zero-sum game ( probably a negative-sum game ).
How many houses didn't get purchased because the state took
money away from someone else who was a prospective buyer?
It's these kinds of questions that are not getting answered by the jillions of studies being done.
Exactly. Between the subsidy and the loans, since their start NM has probably laid
out almost
ONE HALF A BILLION DOLLARS
to the film industry.
ONE HALF A BILLION DOLLARS
For what? A studio that employs just how many people? Temporary jobs for a handful more?
To prop up a local lumber yard? For a couple thousand catered lunches?
ONE HALF A BILLION DOLLARS ought to buy a lot more than that..
It's disingenuous to ignore the fact that no study has ever been done, period.
Huh?
According to Rep. Kintigh, "study after study after study" has been done showing only a small return on investment (this is a statement about the film industry in general and its impact on any given state)
And what about this study done in 2009?
Economic and Fiscal Impacts of the New Mexico Film Production Tax Credit (http://www.nmfilm.com/locals/downloads/nmfilmCreditImpactAnalysis.pdf - broken link)
Who did you say was being disingenuous?
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