Residents of California have been ditching the state en masse in the past few years. What was a small trickle of people before the pandemic turned into a massive, constant convoy of U-Haul trucks headed out of the state as people finally decided that they had had enough, packed up their belongings, and left the once-Golden State for greener pastures.
Those greener pastures are generally in red states, particularly Florida and Texas, both of which have seen massive population growth thanks to the refugees from Greasy Gavin’s failing state.
Actor Dennis Quaid talked about the trend to Fox News Channel host Jesse Watters on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” explaining why many actors want to move the film industry from California to Texas. Speaking on that, he said, “We want to make Texas the film capital of the world. That’s what Texas used to really have – a great film incentive program and a great film crew base. About nine or 10 years ago, I made some great movies there and [I] love working there.”
Continuing, Quaid then added that there is “more business friendly” legislation brewing in the Texas State House to increase film funding from $40 million to possibly $300 million and that having the film industry located somewhere like Texas would draw people in the industry back to one spot. “It would bring back a lot of people who moved to other states like Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, surrounding Texas, actually, and Georgia,” he said.
Continuing, he noted that many films are filmed outside of California anyway right now, saying, “I can’t remember the last time I made a film in California, to tell you the truth. You know, they still do their game shows there and talk shows and stuff that. Everybody films in Georgia or Oklahoma or whatever – because it doesn’t matter where it’s supposed to take place cause – it’s cheaper.”
Quaid then emphasized to Watters that there is a larger opportunity in moving the industry to Texas than to a smaller state like Oklahoma or Georgia because there are a “lot of people” there, and having money to pay for crew members like carpenters and painters will “rev up the economy there.”
Perhaps more important than the size of Texas is its lack of state income tax, which is something that makes it very attractive to the industry, particularly compared to California’s sky-high income tax.
Quaid then added that Texas has already stolen the tech industry from California, so Hollywood might as well be next, saying, “Texas did a really good job at taking a big share of the tech industry away from Silicon Valley. You go down to Austin and you can see that really clearly. And the same thing can be done with movies and television shows. It’s a great place to shoot. Think of the California gold rush, you know? It’s like a few people did strike it rich, but the people who really made money were the shopkeepers and people selling shovels and spades and stuff like that who were doing other things besides mining for gold. And that’s kind of what happened here.”
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