Michigan's movie effort also produces disputes and corruption

Michigan can use all the jobs and economic investment it can get, and state officials believe they can secure some of it by trying to turn the Great Lakes State into the Hollywood of the Midwest.

To that end, Michigan has enacted a series of tax incentives designed to lure film producers to make movies in the state. The result of the incentives? Some movies, and no small amount of discord.

The results, in terms of actual projects attracted, are hard to quantify since the incentive only went into place in April 2008. In order to qualify, the project must spend at least $50,000 in the state (but can’t pay any single employee more than $2 million), and has to meet a bunch of other requirements as far as Michigan residents working on the project

If you qualify, you get a 40 percent refundable tax credit, across the board, on Michigan expenditures.

There have been some significant films made in Michigan, including the Tom Hanks Film “Road to Perdition” and Eminem’s “Eight Mile,” but they were made before the incentives went into effect. The Michigan Film Office reports a major uptick in Michigan-based films starting in 2008, but most of them are obscure works made by local production houses. The most significant was the Clint Eastwood film “Gran Torino.”

But the film incentives have produced other things as well – namely, corruption and political dispute.

As vampires drain the treasury voters get riled

Three years ago, the Republican establishment piled scorn on the presidential candidacy of Ron Paul.

Today, he is in a statistical tie with President Obama in 2012 polling. His son, an ophthalmologist who has never run for elective office, is well ahead of not only the GOP's handpicked candidate for Senate in Kentucky but also both Democratic contenders -- all statewide officeholders.

What happened? Did America sudden develop an insatiable appetite for 74-year-old, cranky congressmen from Texas? Is the gold standard catching on?

Paul will not likely be the next president. And his son still faces the most arduous part of his journey as Democrats spend millions to paint him as soft on defense, lax on drug enforcement and too radical on welfare programs.

But there's no doubt that hating the government and the powerful interests that pull Washington's strings has gone from the radical precincts of the Right and Left to the mainstream.

It turns out that watching Goldman Sachs, the United Auto Workers, public employee unions and a raft of other vampires drain the treasury at America's weakest moment in a generation will make a person pretty hacked off.

Detroit, where hope and reform go to die

From Corner at NRO

"To be a Kilpatrick or a Conyers was once political gold in Detroit. “The Detroit Kennedys,” some called them. Reference their legacy on your application and you were all but guaranteed admittance to public office. But the young scions have brought shame to the family crest. Suddenly, the Kilpatrick and Conyers names are radioactive — and, in a remarkable twist of fate, the political careers of the family elders are now in peril.

In 2002, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick rode the coattails of his mother, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, and his politically connected father, Bernard, to become, at age 31, Detroit’s youngest mayor. Self sure and media savvy, Kwame’s tumultuous two terms attracted plenty of charges of political corruption. But c’mon, Jake, it’s Chinatown.

Only when Kilpatrick was caught in text messages negotiating a multimillion-dollar, city-financed payoff to cover up a sex scandal did the wheels come off. Kwame became a national embarrassment, a pariah at the 2008 Democratic Convention, and very nearly deep-sixed his mother’s re-election last fall (she won with 39 percent, only because two challengers split the rest of the vote). Now, with 2010 looming, a mere 27 percent of voters in her Detroit district want her re-elected."

The banking queen keeps on giving

"Troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston didn't look much like a candidate for aid from the Treasury Department's bank bailout fund last fall.

The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen most of its capital evaporate. Moreover, it was under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use.

Nonetheless, in December OneUnited got a $12 million injection from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. One apparent factor: the intercession of Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Frank, by his own account, wrote into the TARP bill a provision specifically aimed at helping this particular home-state bank. And later, he acknowledges, he spoke to regulators urging that OneUnited be considered for a cash injection."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258284337504295.html

FBI raids client of U.S. Rep. John Murtha

"Federal agents on Thursday raided the offices of a Pennsylvania government contractor with close ties to Rep. John P. Murtha, chairman of the powerful Defense panel on the House Appropriations Committee.

Agents from the FBI, IRS and Defense Criminal Investigative Service searched the offices of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems in three different locations in Pennsylvania.

Over the last several years, Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, has helped steer more than $100 million in contracts to Kuchera, a government contractor founded in 1985 by Bill Kuchera. The company and its employees have donated more than $65,000 dollars to Murtha’s reelection campaign and leadership political action committee, according to Federal Election Commission records."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17846.html