Hollywood has 14 weeks to get a federal film tax credit bill through Congress. AFP via Getty Images Hollywood is still optimistic that it can get its federal film tax credit bill across the finish line before Congress ends at the end of the year. We’ll find out today how willing a bruised and battered Republican party is to work with Hollywood after the town mostly celebrated last week’s Democrat rout.
“You’d have to ask them,” California Rep. Laura Friedman tells Page Six Hollywood, on the mood of her GOP colleagues, but argued that outgoing lawmakers can at least go out on a high note. “This is something that can be accomplished under a GOP-led Congress.”
There are six weeks until Congress goes on its end of year recess, meaning that any bill has to make it through the House and Senate by Dec. 18, or else the process starts all over again once the new Congress is sworn in in January. And when that happens, priorities will shift. Since flipping both the House and Senate last week, Democratic leaders have been promising an aggressive blitz of investigations into Trump and the executive branch, threatening to stymie the momentum for a federal film incentive.
“My hope is that we can get this done in the lame duck,” Friedman says. “It’s not going to be an easy task.” Friedman says that since her bill was introduced in September, 52 lawmakers have signed on to it, equally split between both parties.
“The bipartisan coalition for this bill continues to grow,” Sen. Adam Schiff, who is leading the Senate effort for the bill, said in a statement to P6H. “It will take both parties working together to get this across the finish line, and we are pushing hard to make this much-needed incentive a reality.”
Schiff and Friedman have pushed for a federal tax incentive program for months, but it wasn’t until President Trump threw his support behind the effort that it was able to get enough Republican support to turn that dream into a reality. Trump likely made the bill’s supporters nervous two weeks ago when he admonished Hollywood liberals for, in his words, “kissing my ass” for his support during an October rally.
“They want tax credits for Hollywood because Hollywood’s dying,” he told the crowd, which boo’ed the idea. “And I’ll probably do it. Should I do it? Probably.”
For her part, Friedman isn’t worried about Trump’s support, pointing out that he’s done nothing to signal he wouldn’t support the bill. “He’s been very enthusiastic about this for two years,” she said, referencing his earlier threats to levy tariffs against movies filmed overseas. “This would be a signature accomplishment for him.”
As Page Six Hollywood previously reported, the plan is to hopefully attach the bill on a larger legislative package. “If we can stick this inside of something else that’s a must pass bill … that would be the easiest path forward for this,” Friedman said.
For LA, the problem is two fold. They’re losing jobs to overseas filmmaking, while also losing ground to other states (New York is closing in on California in production work). Incoming mayor Nithya Raman has ties to Hollywood’s creative class through her husband and pushed for an uncapped state film tax program. But none of that matters, Friedman argues, if DC can’t help.
“We are united in not wanting these jobs going to Eastern Europe and other countries,” she says. “We can’t compete with overseas incentives unless the federal government steps up.”
