LETTER: Film tax subsidies and other Nevada handouts
Review-Journal columnist Victor Joecks (Nov. 5) calls Nevada’s film tax credits “for suckers.” Maybe so, but if that’s true, there are a lot of other suckers sitting at the same table.
Nevada has handed out deep tax breaks for years to data centers, AI infrastructure and other “next big thing” industries. Those projects also come with lofty promises of jobs and growth, but the results are often thin: a short burst of construction work followed by a handful of permanent positions. Yet we rarely hear those incentives mocked as naïve or wasteful.
If we’re going to question whether film subsidies pay off, let’s apply that same scrutiny to every deal that trades public revenue for private investment. A sweetheart deal doesn’t become wise just because it involves servers instead of cameras.
The real test is simple: Do these incentives deliver measurable, lasting benefits to the people of Nevada, or do they mainly enrich Hollywood and Silicon Valley because they were clever enough to ask for them? Before we decide who the suckers are, let’s make sure we’re not being played twice.
