Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, is responding to the Sept. 3 editorial "Send film tax credit to cutting room floor," which stated that "given California's precarious finances, legislators should not extend tax credits this year for moviemakers or any other industry."

Thousands of unemployed entertainment industry workers know just how wrong The Bee is, as do those who have jobs because of California's current tax-incentive program.

For the record, my tax-credit bill was signed into law. The editorial suggests that then-Assemblyman Paul Krekorian was father of the tax credit.

More significant is the editorial's misguided premise that efforts to stem "runaway production" are merely campaign fodder.

Data from the California Film Commission, which administers the five-year, $500 million tax incentive program for filmmakers and TV producers, clearly show the benefits of my tax credit bill. The data also support Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes' Assembly Bill 1069, which extends the tax credit for five years. Committee amendments reduced the extension to one year – a serious mistake.

It makes no sense for production companies to move productions back to California or keep them here based on tax incentives approved on a year-by-year basis.

The film commission reported last June that it has received 176 applications from film and TV producers since the tax credit program began in 2009, generating $2.2 billion in direct spending within the state, including $736 million in wages paid to crew members including camera operators, grips and lighting technicians. High-paid talent – the A-listers – was excluded in my bill.

These jobs, and the paychecks, would have gone elsewhere without the tax incentive. To suggest otherwise is to recklessly ignore the negative impact of runway production to states such as New Mexico, Utah, Louisiana and Georgia that offer attractive tax incentives to California movie producers.

It has been happening since 1997, when Canada enacted incentives. U.S. entertainment industry jobs flocked to Vancouver and Toronto. By 2001, the U.S. Commerce Department estimated runaway production was costing our nation's economy $10 billion annually.

At a legislative hearing in March, business agent Ed Brown for Local 44 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees testified that despite the 2,300 jobs created for Local 44 members in the first two years of the tax-incentive program, unemployment for his members remained at 28 percent, three times the national average and slightly higher than Great Depression jobless rate!

So if The Bee thinks legislators who work on job creation and retention through tax incentives is such a bad thing, maybe it should spend a few days with the family of an unemployed entertainment industry worker.

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Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, is responding to the Sept. 3 editorial "Send film tax credit to cutting room floor," which stated that "given California's precarious finances, legislators should not extend tax credits this year for moviemakers or any other industry."

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