According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), the fiscal implications of SB 22 are significant and primarily stem from the establishment and funding of the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Fund. The bill requires the Comptroller of Public Accounts to deposit $500 million from sales and use tax revenues into the newly created fund during the first month of each state fiscal biennium. This results in an estimated negative impact on General Revenue-Related Funds of approximately $501.5 million for the 2026–2027 biennium.

Over the five-year period from 2026 to 2030, the bill is expected to consistently divert $500 million from General Revenue every other year into the incentive fund. This transfer is supplemented by administrative costs to the Office of the Governor, which include hiring seven new full-time employees (FTEs) to implement and manage the expanded program. These positions range from program specialists to legal counsel and accounting personnel, with annual administrative costs hovering around $740,000 to $770,000.

Although the bill does not make a direct appropriation, it establishes the statutory foundation for these appropriations and sets up a dedicated account outside the state treasury. The fund is scheduled to be abolished on August 31, 2035, at which time any remaining unspent or unencumbered funds will revert to the General Revenue Fund. As the timing and size of grant disbursements are unpredictable and dependent on project applications, any earnings from investing the fund’s balance cannot currently be estimated.

In summary, the bill imposes a substantial recurring fiscal obligation on the state while establishing a long-term incentive infrastructure for the film and multimedia industry. However, the associated economic returns from increased industry activity, local employment, and tourism are not quantified in the fiscal note, leaving the net economic impact of the legislation open to future assessment.

Texas Policy Research strongly recommends that lawmakers vote NO on SB 22, grounded in principled opposition to government intervention in private industry, particularly through politically conditioned subsidies. While the bill purports to stimulate economic development in the Texas film and multimedia sectors, it does so by extracting $500 million biennially from general tax revenue and placing it into a discretionary fund controlled by the Governor’s Office. The enormous scale of this commitment—totaling $1.5 billion over the next six years—demands intense scrutiny, especially given the state’s limited oversight over the actual economic impact of funded projects. This fund is then used to reward projects that meet the state’s subjective standards of “decency” and positive portrayals of Texas, effectively making the government a cultural gatekeeper. This kind of content-based regulation, especially when tied to public funding, is not only an overreach but a direct threat to free expression and viewpoint neutrality.

Adding insult to injury, taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for this speculative spending while assuming all the financial risk. The state collects the revenue, redirects it through a centralized political office, and assumes the burden if the promised benefits—like increased tourism, job creation, or economic development—fail to materialize. The beneficiaries, by contrast, face no downside if their projects flop, employ few Texans, or leave no lasting economic footprint. There is no private capital at risk here—only public money, extended with no performance security or enforceable expectation of return.

From a fiscal and philosophical standpoint, SB 22 violates core principles of limited government and free enterprise. It creates a massive, recurring government subsidy program that favors certain businesses and artistic expressions while excluding others based on ideological criteria. The grant program is structured in such a way that it encourages filmmakers to conform to the state’s messaging preferences to secure funding—clearly distorting natural market dynamics and eroding the role of consumer choice in the creative economy. Moreover, the legislation increases the size and role of government by creating new bureaucratic oversight roles and embedding centralized discretion without meaningful safeguards.

Rather than reducing the burden of government or allowing markets to flourish on their own terms, SB 22 expands the state’s footprint into an industry where it has no rightful role. The bill’s approach undermines personal responsibility, invites censorship by proxy, and sets a troubling precedent for how taxpayer dollars are used to influence culture. For these reasons, and without interest in pursuing amendments, the bill must be rejected in its entirety. The proper role of government is to protect liberty, not to finance or filter expression.

Finally, this bill sets a dangerous precedent. If Texas is willing to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to politically filtered entertainment projects, what's to stop similar demands from other industries? The bill invites further government expansion into areas that should be left to private initiative and consumer demand. It is not the government's role to subsidize or curate artistic expression, much less to gamble with taxpayer money on industries that already thrive through private investment. SB 22 is not a targeted stimulus or a public good—it’s a blank check drawn from the pockets of hardworking Texans, written in the name of speculative cultural promotion with no guarantee of a return.

SB 22 is a legislative priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

• Individual Liberty: The bill grants broad and subjective authority to the Governor’s Music, Film, Television, and Multimedia Office to reject or rescind grant applications based on whether a project’s content is deemed “inappropriate” or portrays Texas or Texans in a “negative fashion.” This type of ideological filtering threatens free speech and artistic freedom by incentivizing creators to self-censor or cater to political expectations in order to secure funding. This is a textbook example of viewpoint discrimination by a government agency. Individual liberty demands that people be free to express their ideas—especially creative ones—without needing state approval or risking state punishment through funding denial.
• Personal Responsibility: Rather than encouraging individuals and companies to fund their creative ventures through their own resources or private investment, the bill shifts the burden of risk and funding to taxpayers. When a business model is sustained by subsidies, it removes the responsibility of entrepreneurs to succeed or fail on the merits of their work. This is particularly problematic in the entertainment sector, where success is inherently uncertain and market-driven. Personal responsibility means bearing the consequences—positive or negative—of one’s choices, not shifting them to the public.
• Free Enterprise: The bill distorts the free market by allowing the state to pick winners and losers through a heavily subsidized grant program. By placing large sums of taxpayer money in a fund that rewards certain businesses based on content and location, the government disrupts competition and disincentivizes private investment. Worse, the bill makes success contingent not just on business performance but on political or cultural alignment with state-defined norms. This is antithetical to the principles of a free market economy where consumer choice—not bureaucratic discretion—should drive outcomes.
• Private Property Rights: While the bill doesn’t seize or regulate private property in a traditional sense, it undermines the practical use and value of intellectual property by conditioning financial support on the content of a project. In other words, a filmmaker may own their work, but their ability to monetize it in Texas is reduced unless it conforms to state standards. This introduces a form of indirect control over creative property, which can limit the real-world use of property rights—particularly for those whose content challenges or critiques the state.
• Limited Government: This bill epitomizes government overreach. It creates a new fund outside the state treasury, redirects $500 million in taxpayer revenue every two years, and places this money under the control of an unelected administrative office with sweeping discretionary powers. The role of government in this scenario shifts from protecting rights to directing economic and cultural activity. Limited government demands that the state act only within narrowly defined roles—this bill does the opposite by expanding bureaucratic power and financial scope with few checks and no guarantees of benefit to the public.

Texas' Film Subsidy Push: Corporate Welfare or Smart Investment?