Cut!
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

As Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council agree to raise taxes based on the claim that the budget can’t be balanced by cutting spending, $1.3 million has been allocated for 2003 to “The Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting.” This, the New York Post reported yesterday, is 30% more than during the Giuliani administration. It’s breathtaking that the politicians would go to the city’s hardworking taxpayers and commuters and ask them to underwrite such a spending increase for an office that is devoted to corporate welfare for Hollywood types. Most of the time a film is being shot in New York, what it amounts to is a massive inconvenience to the city’s citizens — closed-off streets, no parking. If the city were in better financial shape and the mayor and council wanted to lavish funds on catering to movie moguls, we wouldn’t protest. But at the moment, the politicians are asking for a tax increase in an already high-tax city. The office’s defenders make the argument that it actually makes the city money because of the economic activity generated by movies in the city. By that logic, why not a Mayor’s Office of Department Stores? Or a Mayor’s Office of Fish and Poultry Wholesalers? A Mayor’s Office for Snowmobile Dealers? A Mayor’s Office for Investment Banks? The point is, central economic planning is a proven failure. Filmmakers want to be in New York because actors live here and because the city’s streets and skyline have an electric attraction to moviegoers across the country. If the movie-industry bigs want streets closed off, they can deal with the police and the department of transportation just like any other business. Cutting the mayor’s film office back to Giuliani-era levels would save the city $300,000.