We reprint on the opposite page a letter to the editor from the chief of Mayor Bloomberg’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting, Katherine Oliver. Usually we let such letters pass unremarked, but in this case we commend it to our readers’ attention for the illumination it provides about the attitudes that create the city’s $6 billion budget gap. First, consider the bureaucrat’s claim: “I assure you that the budget for the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting has not been increased by 30%.” In fact, according to the city comptroller’s report for fiscal 1998, available online, the city spent $799,532 in “personal services,” or staff, that year on the film office, and $145,842 in expenses on the film office other than personal services. That totals $945,374. The comparable figures for for 2003 — that’s the year with the $6 billion gap and the budget the New York Sun suggested cutting — were $1,162,404 and $174,584, for a total of $1,336,988. Ms. Oliver’s assurance notwithstanding, in the world outside Hollywood, an increase to $1,336,988 from $945,374 is a 30% increase. If anything, we understated it.

But it gets even richer. Consider Ms. Oliver’s claim that “Our budget for 2002, which totaled $1.3 million, yielded $2.3 billion in direct expenditures to our economy.” Under this principle, the private sector doesn’t create economic activity, government offices do. If one accepts this proposition that private film activity is a direct function of the amount of government spending on the film office, it’s another argument for rolling the spending level back to the 1998 levels — film expenditures were even higher in that year. And since, under the Oliver formula, the size of the film office budget is the only variable that affects the level of private film activity, why not set that variable at the level where there was the most activity?

Finally, there is the explanation of why the office exists in the first place: “in response to a majority of film executives who complained directly to the mayor about multiple city agency jurisdictions and endless red tape.” There you have it in a nutshell, the thinking that brings you New York’s high taxes and budget-busting spending: Instead of getting rid of the red tape, leave the red tape in place, but create yet a new city bureaucracy that cuts through the tape for one wealthy and politically powerful constituency — while sticking the common taxpayer with the bill.