California is pricing Hollywood out of Hollywood, then acting shocked when the shows leave. This isn’t a threat. It’s already happening. American Idol is moving Season 25 to Atlanta. Shark Tank already left Culver City for Tyler Perry Studios in Georgia. The Masked Singer is going to New Jersey. America’s Got Talent is now looking at Georgia or Nashville for Season 22. The reason is simple: cheaper production, including lower taxes. This ties in indirectly to the Paramount–Warner merger settled yesterday. Gov. Gavin Newsom and AG Rob Bonta bent the knee, or California would’ve lost a huge production company and many thousands of jobs. David Ellison said he’d start moving Paramount out of California if they kept blocking the merger past Oct. 1. Newsom took that seriously. The deal keeps the Melrose and Burbank lots and adds at least $1.5 billion in extra U.S. film spend. Bonta had called the exit talk blackmail. Then he signed. That says it all. Those unscripted TV moves and the Paramount settlement are not the same contract. They are the same pattern. Georgia and New Jersey pay reality TV well with tax incentives. California lectures, then bargains when a studio puts jobs and an exit on the table. If the Golden State wants the work, cut the cost of shooting here. Don’t wait until the next company packs the trucks. Protect workers by giving companies a reason to stay. That’s true for California and for the country. Lower corporate taxes keep the jobs from leaving America. Incentives work.