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Friday, November 13, 2020
Hopes for a Stimulus Deal Fade as Theaters Seek Bailout
Variety: Hopes for a COVID relief bill during the lame duck session of Congress are already fading, as House and Senate leaders dug into their positions on Thursday.
5 comments:
Josh Blackwood
said...
It is clear that our community is not important to some of the members of Congress. They continue to fail on promises they make, and people continue to believe these promises. It really does come down to who in Congress cares and who just wants to let their rich friends get richer. I’m pretty sure that if enough of Mitch McConnell’s cronies need help, they’ll get a bailout, but not the arts. Too many independent venues have closed for good. Freelancers, Independent contractors, Stage crews, bus drivers, truck drivers, and even artists are all suffering right now and no longer do we have eviction protection or utility protection. All of that is gone because when things started opening up, Congress only saw job numbers going up. They called it a good thing, but what they fail to see is that those job numbers are because people who were laid off are going back to their jobs. Many couldn’t refuse to go back less they get fired. So clearly, we in the arts will see nothing until January. So much for Congress caring about the people. Maybe now they will pay attention and stop re-electing people who don’t care and elect people who do.
The sort of politics that has gone on in the past 8 months never fails to amaze me. Senators on both sides of the aisle will always do whatever they can to stay in power and in doing so neglect to help the American people. We've needed federal money on the industrial, commercial, and personal levels for far too long now, and it seems like the institutions put in place to distribute such money have no intention of doing so. Just yesterday, I arrived back in my hometown, a small town in eastern Pennsylvania. It pained me to see so many small businesses, a surprising amount just up-and-coming within the past year or so, have to close their doors because no relief came. It's a miracle that our one small theatre has survived on its solid base in the town. But failing businesses in communities like mine and even large cities of hundreds of thousands of people are apparently not enough for Congress to acknowledge. I will refrain from divulging all of my political opinions on the internet, but from the precedent that we've seen set, the arts are not getting anything anytime soon.
Something that I see in this article and see a lot in other articles is that these articles about theatrical bailouts/stimulus are just reporting on broader information about the stimulus debate. There is nothing here, or that I have seen in the past, that is actually about bailouts for the theater industry. And I don't think that the government is really that into bailing theaters, be it movie theaters or playhouses, especially since we have digital platforms for release that are much safer than attempting to bail out something that people cannot go see. States and counties are going back into tighter restrictions and lockdowns, meaning that going to see the newest film isn't going to be possible and it would just lead to a continuous loss of profit. I wish when articles like this come up, there is actually relevant information in these and not just information that you see everyday on your local news. Also, most of this article had nothing to do with theater, so I'm not actually sure why it was written with that headline.
I do not know why I keep commenting on articles that have to do with Congress and their lack of motivation to agree on a relief bill for the rest of the country that is still very much struggling with the coronavirus pandemic. It is very clear to me that congress holds live entertainment as a far less important issue than it actually is. The millions of dollars and thousands of people that the live event industry supports should be more than enough to warrant a theatrical bailout of some sort. While I do not consider myself a politician by any stretch of the imagination, it does not take a politician to understand the effect that covid has had on working-class Americans that I interact with on a daily basis. Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi are clearly on completely different planets when it comes to coronavirus relief, and that is not unexpected. However, politics is all about checks and balances and compromise. Unfortunately, I do not think we will be seeing many compromises until after January 20th, 2021.
Gabe has a great point here. The entertainment industry supports one third of the economy. This is a known fact and has shown up in many past articles. Yet, it is always the least cared for and last concerned with industry. I do not believe there is any other industry that has that much invested in the economy. And this is not even talking about the arts. That is even more invested but in ways we do not think about, so many of the arts are supported because they fall under business. Either way, it is becoming ridiculous that in a time where action is greatly needed, we still fail to provide action in an appropriate amount of time. It makes me think that the entertainment industry should take over the government because we will have detailed and thought out plans as soon as possible, meaning much much sooner than now. It also doesn’t help entering a lame duck moment because for whatever reason, when the president is not yet switched but going to be, everyone decides to stop making decisions and that’s the opposite of what we need.
5 comments:
It is clear that our community is not important to some of the members of Congress. They continue to fail on promises they make, and people continue to believe these promises. It really does come down to who in Congress cares and who just wants to let their rich friends get richer. I’m pretty sure that if enough of Mitch McConnell’s cronies need help, they’ll get a bailout, but not the arts. Too many independent venues have closed for good. Freelancers, Independent contractors, Stage crews, bus drivers, truck drivers, and even artists are all suffering right now and no longer do we have eviction protection or utility protection. All of that is gone because when things started opening up, Congress only saw job numbers going up. They called it a good thing, but what they fail to see is that those job numbers are because people who were laid off are going back to their jobs. Many couldn’t refuse to go back less they get fired. So clearly, we in the arts will see nothing until January. So much for Congress caring about the people. Maybe now they will pay attention and stop re-electing people who don’t care and elect people who do.
The sort of politics that has gone on in the past 8 months never fails to amaze me. Senators on both sides of the aisle will always do whatever they can to stay in power and in doing so neglect to help the American people. We've needed federal money on the industrial, commercial, and personal levels for far too long now, and it seems like the institutions put in place to distribute such money have no intention of doing so. Just yesterday, I arrived back in my hometown, a small town in eastern Pennsylvania. It pained me to see so many small businesses, a surprising amount just up-and-coming within the past year or so, have to close their doors because no relief came. It's a miracle that our one small theatre has survived on its solid base in the town. But failing businesses in communities like mine and even large cities of hundreds of thousands of people are apparently not enough for Congress to acknowledge. I will refrain from divulging all of my political opinions on the internet, but from the precedent that we've seen set, the arts are not getting anything anytime soon.
Something that I see in this article and see a lot in other articles is that these articles about theatrical bailouts/stimulus are just reporting on broader information about the stimulus debate. There is nothing here, or that I have seen in the past, that is actually about bailouts for the theater industry. And I don't think that the government is really that into bailing theaters, be it movie theaters or playhouses, especially since we have digital platforms for release that are much safer than attempting to bail out something that people cannot go see. States and counties are going back into tighter restrictions and lockdowns, meaning that going to see the newest film isn't going to be possible and it would just lead to a continuous loss of profit. I wish when articles like this come up, there is actually relevant information in these and not just information that you see everyday on your local news. Also, most of this article had nothing to do with theater, so I'm not actually sure why it was written with that headline.
I do not know why I keep commenting on articles that have to do with Congress and their lack of motivation to agree on a relief bill for the rest of the country that is still very much struggling with the coronavirus pandemic. It is very clear to me that congress holds live entertainment as a far less important issue than it actually is. The millions of dollars and thousands of people that the live event industry supports should be more than enough to warrant a theatrical bailout of some sort. While I do not consider myself a politician by any stretch of the imagination, it does not take a politician to understand the effect that covid has had on working-class Americans that I interact with on a daily basis. Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi are clearly on completely different planets when it comes to coronavirus relief, and that is not unexpected. However, politics is all about checks and balances and compromise. Unfortunately, I do not think we will be seeing many compromises until after January 20th, 2021.
Gabe has a great point here. The entertainment industry supports one third of the economy. This is a known fact and has shown up in many past articles. Yet, it is always the least cared for and last concerned with industry. I do not believe there is any other industry that has that much invested in the economy. And this is not even talking about the arts. That is even more invested but in ways we do not think about, so many of the arts are supported because they fall under business. Either way, it is becoming ridiculous that in a time where action is greatly needed, we still fail to provide action in an appropriate amount of time. It makes me think that the entertainment industry should take over the government because we will have detailed and thought out plans as soon as possible, meaning much much sooner than now. It also doesn’t help entering a lame duck moment because for whatever reason, when the president is not yet switched but going to be, everyone decides to stop making decisions and that’s the opposite of what we need.
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