Why Not Give the Dems Some of the Higher Taxes They Want?

Easy now, read the story before you think I've gone completely off my rocker. Glenn Reynolds offers a good place to start raising taxes, somewhere that might completely change the tone of the argument:

One of the things that's been floating around the Web over the past week is a video clip from 1953. It's a short film produced by the motion picture industry, seeking the end of a 20 percent excise tax on movie theaters' gross revenues that had been imposed at the end of World War II as a deficit-cutting measure. (Yes, gross, not net).

In the film, figures ranging from industry big shots to humble ticket collectors talk about how the tax is hurting their industry and killing jobs, and ask Congress to repeal the tax.

They even explain, in a sort of pre-Art Laffer supply-side way, that a cut in theater taxes might actually produce an increase in federal revenues as the result of greater economic growth.

The effort -- which includes a call aimed at "Congressman John Dingell," father of the current Rep. John Dingell, who took over from his father a mere two years later in 1955 -- ultimately succeeded.

But while I'm usually for tax cuts, in this case I think that's too bad. Because with this battle over, Hollywood stopped talking loudly about the damage done by high taxes, pretty much for good.

When, since, have we seen such a firmly expressed appreciation of the harm that excessive taxation can do to the economy, voiced by representatives of the entertainment industries?

Today, those industries are a major source of Democratic contributions and spread-the-wealth rhetoric, even as they prosper based on this tax cut, and numerous other bits of favorable treatment scattered throughout the Internal Revenue Code. It's time for a change.

Were I a Republican senator or representative, I would be agitating to repeal the "Eisenhower tax cut" on the movie industry and restore the excise tax. I think I would also look at imposing similar taxes on sales of DVDs, pay-per-view movies, CDs, downloadable music, and related products.

I'd also look at the tax and accounting treatment of these industries to see if they were taking advantage of any special "loopholes" that could be closed as a means of reducing "tax expenditures." (Answer: Yes, they are.)

Read the rest of it here.

There's nothing like using the left's own weapons against them, and now that former Sen. Chris Dodd is the leading lobbyist for the movie business, this effort could be highly entertaining. Some congressmen needs to pick up the battle proposed by Reynolds and run with it. Let's see how excited those Hollywood lefties are about high taxes when Washington comes calling on them.