But unless spending is cut to pay for it — which never happens — other businesses have to pay for the tax subsidies. Holman W. Jenkins Jr. just wrote for the Wall Street Journal how Toyota, after getting tax subsidies from the state, still couldn’t make a profit from its Nummi plant in Fremont. So it decided to cancel the plant.

But that happened at the same time as the “sudden acceleration” crisis, for which it actually was exonerated by the federal government.

The situation led to Elon Musk picking up Nummi at a bargain-basement price for his Tesla plant. Musk also has received state subsidies, although Nevada recently got his battery plant with $2 billion in subsidies of its own.

Jenkins:

To its credit, the Los Angeles Times would level with its readers about Nummi, citing an industry consultant to the effect that “California just isn’t competitive in manufacturing with its taxes, regulations and overall cost of doing business.”

Perhaps the moral is obvious but dishing out handouts to favored businesses like Tesla at the expense of the state’s other taxpaying workers and employers is hardly a solution to California’s problems. And such Mommie Dearest love brings its own Faustian risk: The favored business can find itself, as Toyota did, under pressure permanently to subsidize a money-losing plant as a “success” politicians can point to even as their policies ensure that real success eludes other businesses in the state.

Michigan

Contrast that with the policies of my home state of Michigan. Four years ago the outgoing governor was Jennifer Granholm, who was born in Canada but grew up in California’s Bay Area; she’s now a professor at U.C. Berkeley. According to a Journal editorial:

Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm was a forerunner of President Obama ’s economic policy mix of raising taxes on everybody while handing out tax favors to the powerful and trendy. Michael Moore got a nearly $1 million tax break to film “Capitalism: A Love Story” in the state. The state awarded $543 million in tax incentives to battery makers in addition to $861 million in federal stimulus dollars. One of the state’s political capital recipients, A123 Systems, has gone bankrupt.

The result:

Unlike its Great Lakes neighbors, Michigan had been bleeding jobs for a decade. Between 2000 and 2009 Michigan lost 825,000 jobs, nearly half in manufacturing. The implosion of the Big Three automakers played a major role, but state policies exacerbated the carnage.

But in 2010, Republican Rick Snyder was elected governor; he’s running for re-election this year. And keep in mind that Michigan has nothing like Silicon Valley, which hardly was fazed by the Great Recession. He cut taxes, rearranged the tax system and got rid of some of the tax subsidies, such as cutting those for film. The result:

What really rankles Democrats is that Mr. Snyder’s tax shock-therapy and 2012 right-to-work law are working. Since January 2012, the Wolverine State’s private job growth (4.5%) has surpassed every state in the Great Lakes region save Indiana (4.6%). Last year, its private GDP growth led the region at 4.6%, compared to 4.4% in Wisconsin, 3.8% in Indiana and 3.5% in Ohio, and 2.6% in Illinois.

Illinois, like California, is run by a Democratic governor who raised taxes, Pat Quinn.

Of course, the weather still is terrible. On the other hand, you can buy a nice, middle-class home in a low-crime suburb for $120,000.

By Joseph Perkins

The California Film Commission is holding a lottery next week for filmmakers and television producers. The lucky winners will share $100 million worth of taxpayer subsidies.

It’s part of the state’s three-year-old Film and Television Tax Credit Program, the purpose of which is to prevent rival states from luring productions away from Hollywood.

Since the program’s inception, tax credits have gone to some 165 productions, according to Amy Lemisch, the Film Commission’s Executive Director. Those “incentives” have generated nearly $3 billion in spending here in the Golden State, she said, and created nearly 30,000 jobs.

The Film Commission is hopeful that the Legislature will approve a bill, introduced by Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, D-Sylmar, which would extend the tax credit program, scheduled to expire next year, until 2018.

The measure passed the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee last week. It remains to be seen if it ultimately finds its way into the state budget the Legislature sends to Gov. Jerry Brown.

Tax Credit Program Does Not Reap Promised Benefits

Lawmakers just might consider the tax credit a luxury the state treasury simply cannot afford, giventhe $16 billion state budget deficit.

And especially considering a recent report by the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment suggesting that the $100 million-a-year state giveaway does not yield the payoff claimed by Lemisch and other less-than-objective boosters.

The report, authored by Lauren Appelbaum, Chris Tilly, and Juliet Huang, studied the economic and production impact of the state’s film and television tax credit. It concluded that the return on the Hollywood subsidy program is, at best, an economic wash for the state.

According to the report, in order for the state to break even on the tax credit, at least 88 percent of productions applying for but not receiving the credit would have to film outside of California. But of the sample the authors studied, 36 percent of productions passed over for state tax credits nonetheless filmed in California.

That’s because, while film and television producers are only too happy to take state subsidies, the handouts are not the lone determining factor in where motion pictures and TV shows are made.

Other important factors cited by the report include production crew depth and quality, technological expertise and a critical mass of production and postproduction facilities.

That echoes a 2010 report prepared for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation by the Kyser Center for Economic Research that listed those factors, as well as California’s unique confluence of well-regarded film schools, entertainment community and film industry suppliers.

All of those factors work in California’s favor, wrote UCLA’s Appelbaum, Tilly and Huang, and tend to keep film and television here in Golden State.

There is one tangible benefit of the film and TV tax credit, at least at the margin: and it helps to offset the high cost of doing business in California, includes state and local taxes, labor costs and regulation.

However, if the cost of doing business in California was average for the 50 states — rather than ranking worst among the states — it would have far more impact than tax credits on the share of films and TV shows produced in California, compared to other states.

K. Lloyd Billingsley

Capital Public Radio, a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Public Radio, is conducting a record drive, urging listeners to bring in — think “donate” — old albums, records, compact discs and so forth. These could include such items as “The Spoken Word of Ronald Reagan,” a spokesman said, “We get a lot of those.”

He apparently thought it was funny, but it did prove revealing. More than 20 years after he left office, and seven years after his death, NPR is still flailing away at Reagan, confirming that NPR remains the organ of the Democratic left. That is why many will not contribute, even though they may like the occasional episode of “Piano Jazz” or “Car Talk.”

The sarcastic tone and inflection said it all. Anything by Ronald Reagan is particularly tossable. That reveals why many will not donate to NPR, whose outlets are in perpetual panhandling model. NPR even urges listeners to donate their automobiles. They will pick it up and do the paperwork. But it’s not as though they lack for money.

They get government money, and run what amount to ads for business like Jiffy Lube and various law firms. In 2003 Joan Kroc, widow of burger magnate Ray Kroc, gave NPR more than $200 million. Along with the government dole, that should have lasted quite a while, but NRP ponies up other reasons not to give.

Last year NPR fired Juan Williams, an articulate African-American liberal known for a fair and balanced approach to the news.

JUNE 10, 2011

At a time when governments and citizens of California are bankrupt, the NFL could build at least one incredibly expensive stadium in the Bay Area: $735 million for the Oakland Raiders (formerly the L.A. Traitors). And $937 million for the San Francisco (gold-digging) 49ers.

The 49ers stadium would be paid with a lot of tax money. Tax dollars likely would be needed for an Oakland stadium, too. Even though Oakland still is paying off the debt on its existing stadium, the Coliseum!

Oh, and let’s remember that 20 years ago the Raiders ripped off the City of Irwindale for $10 million — just for considering moving to the city, which the team didn’t!

Here’s a better idea: Tell these teams to take a hike out of the state.

Southern California lost the Raiders and the Rams more than a decade ago. We don’t miss them. Who needs these tax-sucking parasites? If you want to watch the NFL, turn on the TV on Sunday and Monday.

Let the Raiders and 49ers go to another state. They’ve raided our tax dollars enough.