Deep inside the fiscal cliff compromise passed Tuesday night is an item that could lead more cities into bankruptcy.
Allen Park, Mich. is an idyllic American town in the heart of the Rust Belt, the kind of place that far-left filmmaker Michael Moore claims he grew up in. A population of 28,210, and median household income around $56,000 a year puts it solidly in the middle class. It somehow escaped the ravages of Urban Blight that left other Michigan cities destitute as auto plants idled over the past thirty years; its poverty rate is only 6.6 percent.
That is, until the town caught show biz fever. The first Canadian Governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, passed a tax credit that would pay back movie producers up to 42 percent of any money they spent in Michigan. (It’s kind of like going to Canada for the exchange rate, only better).
Hollywood rushed into the state to take advantage of the offer. Michigan paid out $110 million in 2010, before Governor Rick Snyder capped the subsidy at $25 million. Moore even got $830,000 for (ironically) filming portions of “Capitalism: A Love Story” there. For a while it looked like the new Hollywood was going to be in Michigan.
Enter Jimmy Lifton, a Music Man type who convinced the good people of Allen Park he was a famous Hollywood producer, and that their town could be that next Hollywood. Gary Burtka, the Mayor of Allen Park, was so star-struck, he didn’t even bother to check Lifton’s credits on IMDB. With the help of Granholm, they pitched an idea that would bring a new movie studio to the Midwest along with, a film school and a tourist attraction.
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