Monday, May 16, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com WILL GRUNDLER| Thinki baby, thinky Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu BETHANY BIRON EDITOR IN CHIEF MARK BURNS MANAGING EDITOR TEDDY PAPES EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely theviews of their authors. FROM THE DAILY Gi ve mea(tax) break Film industry incentives must be maintained n Thursday, a new bill was introduced in the Michigan Senate that may save the state's film industry from Gov. Rick Snyder's proposed budget cuts. Senate Bill No. 383, proposed by State Senators Mike Kowall (R-White Lake Township) and Virgil Smith (D-Detroit), will preserve the film credits that the Michigan Film Tax Incentives have provided to filmmakers since 2008. This proposed bill could reverse one of the many mistakes in Snyder's latest budgetary cuts, and the Michigan Senate should pass it. The absurdity of recent political grandstanding in response to high gasoline prices is quickly reaching cosmic proportions, which tends to happen when the collective thought of our nation's representatives struggles to fill a thimble. But what an apt amount of cerebral activ- ity it was! The legislation jammed through the House of Representa- tives by the Republican majority over the past two weeks - legisla- tion that not only reverses President Obama's offshore drilling morato- rium, but also calls for an expan- sion of drilling into certain federal waters - will amount to a thimble- sized contribution of oil to our mas- sive energy demand. Apart from being completely useless, the legislation also, holds the distinction of having the most puerile name in recent memory. It consists of three bills titled "Put- ting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act," "Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act" and "Reversing President Obama's Off- shore Moratorium Act." Linguistic concerns aside, the bills basically serve to reopen the Gulf of Mexico and other areas, such as the Atlantic off the coast of Virginia, to oil drill- ing. Proponents of these bills (most- ly Republicans) cheerfully contend that greater domestic production will lower gas prices and decrease our dependence on foreign oil. Such a bold side-stepping of reali- ty is nearly on par with the "theory" of creationism and other infantile beliefs. It conveniently ignores the fact that oil is traded on a global market. There is no chance of the United States producing enough oil to significantly shift the price of a barrel and thus reduce gasoline costs. And the notion that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil by producing more at home is equally ridiculous - the rnath just doesn't work. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, we used just under seven billion barrels of oil last year. The total amount . of proven offshore reserves as of 2009 is a little over four billion bar- rels, according to the same agency. Even otr onshore reserves are scant - a little over 16 billion barrels. In case your intelligence has yet to be insulted, the waters i n Virginia that the legislation would lmake avail- able for exploitation would yield a six-day supply of oil, according to the Departmentofsthe interior. If it were just Republicans pan- dering to the public's distaste over the price of gas, there wouldn't be much to worry about. Yet on Satur- day, President Obama committed another environmental blunder. Even after acknowledging that "there are no quick fixes to the problem" of $4-a-gallon gasoline, Obama went on to endorse drill- ing in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, "speed[ing] up the evalu- ation of oil and gas resources in the mid and south Atlantic" and opening up the Gulf of Mexico to new drilling leases, according to his most recent YouTube address. These steps supposedly "make good sense." These steps actu- ally contradict the administra- tion's previous policies and make absolutely no sense. Not only is there much less oil than previously thought in the National Petroleum Reserve- (a 2010 estimate by the United States Geological Survey put the figure at a little under a billion barrels), there is no extant technologytoremediate an oil spill in the arctic environment. What are we to do in the face of this blatant anti-intellectualism and political gamesmanship? We need to do something distinctly un-American: We need to think. According to an April CNN poll, 69% of Americans support the expansion of offshore drilling. Con- ceivably, this only gave more weight to the irrational bills proposed by members of the House of Repre- sentatives and exerted more pres- sure on President Obama to reverse his previously sensible policies. It is an irony of a supreme order that the age of information in America became the age of unreason. Simple soundbites in the media, such as "Drill, baby, drill!", influence mil- lions. The sensationalistic accounts of "Climategate" gave ammunition to politicians and pundits and actu- ally reversed a growing belief in anthropogenic climate change in this country. So let us be on guard from letting our representatives makesenseless and unscientific decisions on our behalf. Let us be on guard from refusing to think. There was a time when the expression "Only in America" conveyed a sense of wonder and hope. Tdy it's a euphemism for irrationanlity. Will Grundler is a senior editorial page editor. a According to a May 14 article in the Detroit Free Press, the new bill attenpts to adjust the incentive program, replacing a standard grant with an adjust- able sliding scale. Currently, the Michigan state government guarantees filmmakers a flat tax credit of 42-percent for their production expenditures. By using a sliding scale to grant tax incentives, this new bill allows the state to evaluate how much revenue and how many jobs each film project will bring in and grant tax credits accordingly. Though the bill does place lim- its on the film industry, the cap is much more reasonable than Snyder's proposed limits. His new budget plan puts a $25-mil- lion limit on spending for the tax credits, whichi tin' film industry argues will drastically cut filn-n ing in ine st . 'While tnyder argues that this)reduction in 1ilm1 spending simply "levels the play- ing field," in reality, these cuts have the potential to destroy the industry's presence in the state, which would result in a substan- tial financial blow to Michigan. Though there has been signifi- cant growth in the three years since the inception of this pro- gram, the state's film industry is not established enough to maintain the same level of busi- ness without the tax incentives. Michigan doesn't have the infra- structure of Hollywood, and without the economic advan- tages, filrn businesses will leave the state. Since the beginning of the program, Michigan has host- ed more than 135 productions and generated more than $649 million dollars, translating to the creation of nearly 4,)00 jobs within the state. It's clear that the tax incentive brought an unprecedented amount of business to Michigan since its inception. What isn't clear is how the state will make up for the lost revenue under Snyder's cuts. According to the May 12 Detroit Free Press article, "Oz: The Great and Powerful" will start filming in August and will generate an estimated $105 mil- lion for the state and employ 257 state residents. Snyder's proposed cuts to the film tax credits directly conflict with his goals of making Michi- gan a loss-tax environment that welcomes businesses. On March 28, the state House approved a $1.7 billion tax cut - a move Sny- der called critical to Michigan's economic reinvention. If Snyder plans to import business to the state through tax breaks, it's illogical for him to cut the film incentives. if the state Senate wants to boost Michigan's econonn, Sen- ate Bill No. 383 should e passed. The fhn nidustry has proved to ie a vitA player in the reinven- tion of M ichigaiin and its econoin- ic potential shouldn't be stifled. 6 I 0