The Letter
0 members of the Pennsylvania film community have signed.
Dear Pennsylvania Senators and Members of Congress:
We are a statewide coalition of industry stakeholders. We write in support of a federal tax incentive for film and television production and what that would mean for Pennsylvania.
On August 31, the President called on Congress to act:
"I am going to suggest that Republicans and Democrats get together, and immediately craft Legislation to save the Movie, Television, and Entertainment Business in America. Congress should approve, immediately, a Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America. It can be done quickly, accurately, efficiently and, importantly, will benefit ALL of America. What we watch on the Silver Screen should be made in what was once the Movie and Motion Picture Capital of the World. Let's get this done!"
Within a day the response was bipartisan, and legislation the President has called the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act is now taking shape in the House.
The industry America invented is leaving quickly. More than forty nations now offer national production incentives, and together they host the majority of global production, a position the United States held for nearly a century. The American share has fallen below 40 percent and is projected to drop below 30 percent by 2035. We are the only major production nation competing without a national policy. Employment is down roughly 30 percent since 2022 for the costumers, carpenters, drivers, and technicians who are the middle class of this business. State programs work, but they were never built to compete against sovereign nations.
The opportunity is correspondingly large. More than half a trillion dollars in global production spending is expected over the next decade, and without a national policy our domestic industry will miss out on the vast majority of it. Returning the U.S. share to 65 percent would add $255 billion to the economy and 147,000 jobs a year.
Every state is poised to benefit. The crews, stages, vendors, locations, and small businesses a federal incentive would put to work are already in place, in every region of the country, waiting on a policy that lets them compete.
This is a small-business industry: 162,000 businesses nationally, 93 percent of them employing ten or fewer people. The benefit lands on Main Street, at the lumberyard, the vendors, the diner, the hardware store, and the hotel. It lands in communities that have never thought of themselves as production towns, and in the ones that built this business a century ago.
What is at stake is our neighbors' livelihoods, in all 50 states and in every congressional district.
We ask for your support of the federal production incentive. Contact Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) and Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-MA) to urge that it move without delay.
Sincerely,
The undersigned members of the Pennsylvania film and television community