Two things seemed to have changed over the last year. 1) There is a new awareness of how pervasive sexual misconduct is in our society, and 2) the legislature seems poised to pass the special tax credit for movie makers.
And since this is an election year, you can count on one thing not changing-cheap politicians scoring cheaper points by targeting other officials for being soft on crime.
So how about jumping on the bandwagon and getting with the zeitgeists? If the legislature is intent on giving away our tax money to an industry that (let’s face it) is at the epicenter of all this misconduct, someone should insist that any tax credit includes a provision that ensures that we are not attracting sexual predators with our tax credits.
How about something that claws back the tax credit if anyone associated with the production company is hit with a credible accusation of sexual misconduct?
I’ll leave it to the elected legislators and their highly trained staffs to work out the details. I’m just a citizen, after all.
But how about it? It seems to be working for the casinos.
I’m not sure I like the film tax credit anyway, but I would keep the business separate from the person. A person should be prosecuted for being a sexual predator, but the business should get the tax credit for filming here if they qualify.
A noble thought in an ideal world.
In the real world, the gambling industry has ALWAYS had deep organized crime connections, and the movie industry has ALWAYS been about older more powerful men exploiting young women who want to be famous.
One reason I oppose both state support for gambling and also the film tax credit is that I think we both know that the state has essentially zero ability to actually manage the dark side of either program.
All the state “oversight” of gambling in the world doesn’t make even a tiny dent in the actual problem of the pervasive connections between organized crime and casino gambling. It is no accident that Los Vegas and Cuba were havens for both organized crime and gambling. The New Jersey experience was the same. Mr. DeLeo’s home district is a center for organized crime in Massachusetts. It is no coincidence that it was also a center for legal and illegal gambling in Massachusetts.
I’m not sure there’s even a tiny bit of oversight associated with the film tax credit. If there was, I am sure that if there was, our legislature and governor would be aggressively seeking to dismantle that oversight in the interest of “increased efficiency”.
The effect of idealistic platitudes like this is to immerse the state in all the tawdry aspects of these tawdry industries.
If we actually care about corruption, then it’s far more effective to pull the plug on gambling altogether. If we actually care about the sexual exploitation of women, then it’s far more effective to pull the plug on the film tax credit.
And that’s a wrap.
It wasn’t meant to be noble. It just looks that way compared to Charlie Baker’s judge bashing.
It is easy enough, for example, to prohibit the recipients of the film tax credits from using NDA’s.