“Going Galt” Part Two

burn-this-city-anthony-citro

On the plan for “Going Galt”

It is time to hit Hollywood and the entire entertainment industry that smeared the prosthetic make-up on this guy and sold him to the gullible celebrity-minded Americans that cannot conceive of how to do a damn thing for themselves.

Buy nothing, no product(s) … movie ticket, concert ticket, iTune download, poster, entertainment magazine, DVD, CD, celebrity clothing line, etc. Buy nothing “Big Bird” or Sesame Street. Now is a great time to initiate this during the holiday shopping season. It is also a big time of the fiscal year for Hollywood movies, now and summer. Not a dime to Hollywood who funded and promoted four more years of misery for us while they sit comfortably in their million(s) dollars homes not worried how much gas is for their fleet of cars/limos or the cost of and shrinking amount of food in their kitchens where somebody else shops and cooks for them. Screw them all the way up to the high-powered producers/directors and studios.

Just a reminder about Hollywood: “Time for Hollywood to pay its fair share”

At the Democratic National Convention, Eva Longoria said that she should be paying higher taxes. I agree.

Actually, what she said was: “The Eva Longoria who worked at Wendy’s flipping burgers — she needed a tax break. But the Eva Longoria who works on movie sets does not.”

I’d actually go further than that. It’s not just Eva Longoria who doesn’t need a tax break — it’s her entire industry, which has enjoyed favorable tax treatment in all sorts of ways, at both the federal and state levels, for years. And now, with the federal government and the states in parlous financial condition, it’s time for those fat cats to shoulder more of the burden. Why should burger flippers at Wendy’s have to cover the national debt while Hollywood moguls enjoy yachts, swimming pools and private jets?

The last time America was this deep in debt was the end of World War II. One of the ways we paid the debt down was through a 20 percent tax on the gross receipts of movie theaters. (That’s right — gross, not net.) That tax was repealed in the 1950s — I guess we could call that the “Hollywood tax cut,” since we’re still talking about the “Bush tax cut” in 2012. To secure that repeal, Hollywood launched a major PR campaign about how taxes kill jobs and hurt prosperity. We haven’t heard that kind of talk from them since.

But, hey, by that time, we were bringing the debt under control. Now, we’re facing debt levels similar to those we faced after World War II, and it seems entirely appropriate to respond with similar measures. Of course, technological change means we’d need to update the 20 percent tax to apply not only to movie theaters, but to DVD sales, movie downloads, pay-per-view and the like. That just means more revenue, which should please Eva Longoria.

And that’s just the beginning. To be sure that fat cats are paying their fair share and not getting away with things that Wendy’s workers can’t, it’s time for the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on Hollywood’s shady accounting practices, which let studios make even highly successful films look like money losers. (Just look up “Hollywood accounting” on Wikipedia.) I feel sure that if the IRS took a hard look at studios’ and producers’ books, they could squeeze out a good deal of additional revenue. Wendy’s workers don’t get to engage in that kind of fancy accounting. Why should Hollywood?

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If Obama’s agenda is to go after small private business then I say we go after Obama’s butt-kissing industry that has NOT been paying its fair share. No, it will not solve the deep money pit this nation is in, but for far too long Hollywood has felt immune to everything they have been demanding for others while expecting those feeling the pain to fork over hard-earned household budget money for their products. As big selfish corporations and corporate sharks go, Hollywood is most definitely one. Don’t feed the shark…

Contact serious republicans in the Congress about ending Hollywood’s tax cuts.

1 thought on ““Going Galt” Part Two”

  1. YES. Insofar as possible, we must not give any money or support to those who’d only wind up using it against us, as they’ve been doing gleefully and maliciously for years. Nobody actually needs what the entertainment industry sells. One of the chief culprits behind our decadence is the absurd fixation on celebrity culture and its “coolness.” We should be constantly aware of where and to whom our money may go, and act accordingly, consistently. Do NOT patronize or subsidize the enemy, for it surely IS the enemy. WAR.

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