AFP-FL praises Senators who voted against film incentives

Americans For Prosperity-Florida on Tuesday thanked lawmakers who voted against film industry incentives bills sponsored Miami Democratic Sen. Annette Taddeo.

SB 1606 would set up a “Florida Motion Picture Capital Corporation” to “encourage the use of this state as a site for scripted productions by providing financing to such productions,” but does not immediately fund it. SB 1604 provides a public records exemption for certain application information sent to the corporation.

“Floridians know film incentives are a bad deal for the state of Florida and taxpayers. The money we send to Tallahassee should be spent on core government services, and not used as handouts for Hollywood,” the group said in an email.

“We commend the Senators who stood with taxpayers and opposed padding the pockets of Hollywood with our tax dollars. We urge the legislature to vote against this reckless program and end the practice of special carve-outs for Hollywood.”

AFP-FL has consistently derided film incentive programs as corporate handouts that don’t positively impact the state, though proponents say Florida’s lack of film incentives funding forces it to compete on an uneven playing field for movie and TV projects than can bring jobs and significant investment to the state.

AFP-FL pointed to a 2015 analysis that showed a return on investment of between 25 cents and 43 cents for every state dollar spent on entertainment industry incentives programs.

AFP-FL said it’s commendation of senators who stood against SB 1604 will include a bit of advertising by way of a direct mail campaign within their districts.

The mailers say the individual senator “is fighting for taxpayers” and that they “voted NO to creating a taxpayer funded bank for Hollywood executives.”

The reverse side tells voters to call up the senator and thank them for “voting against taxpayer handouts” and to tell them to “keep fighting for Florida taxpayers.”

AFP-FL also said lawmakers votes on SB 1604 would be noted in their annual “Economic Freedom Scorecard.”

A version of the mailer featuring Tampa Republican Sen. Dana Young is below.