Opinion: Editorial
Beer tax makes cents
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“Beer” is one of the English language’s most beautiful words, forever stuck behind the Holy Trinity of “free,” “puppies” and “philatelist.” “Tax,” however, is as sinister as three letters can get. When Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, brought the two together in her recently proposed beer tax legislation, there was a certain degree of hesitance. It’s like watching your best friend marry that female officer who keeps pulling you over for driving drunk. Yet, despite any initial timidity, the proposal is both smart and necessary.
The tax, which would add an additional 2.4 cents to every beer bottle you purchase, is just one of many steps needed to fully address the state’s alcohol problem. Much like the effort to finally reform archaic OWI laws, a beer tax would not only generate revenue for the state, it would stand to further dispel the myth Wisconsin trembles at the feet of the industry “that made Milwaukee famous.” Much to the contrary, all the current legislation suggests lawmakers are mad as hell and aren’t going to take this anymore.
But this isn’t to say the proposal has us drinking the Kool-Aid — or the wop. If the state wants to generate revenue off of beer consumption, they owe it to the public to use that money to fund programs aimed at dealing with Wisconsin alcoholism. Whether these are treatment programs or increased OWI enforcement plans is not the issue, but as soon as beer tax money starts going to road construction or debt alleviation, it ceases to be effective.
Ultimately, the tax shouldn’t alter the typical college budget too drastically. According to Ms. Berceau, it would take a week of daily six-pack guzzling before you spent an extra dollar on sorrow-drowners, and since the Badgers only lose Ohio State in football once a year, that scenario should rarely pop up.
The principle detractors to the bill — namely beer companies and the Wisconsin Tavern League — continue defending an indefensible position. It’s difficult to argue that the tax — combined with the nation’s shattered economy — will force beer companies to lay off jobs when logic would suggest that alcohol consumption skyrockets when people are unemployed and downtrodden.
Miller has no trouble spending that last half-second of air time telling the public to drink responsibly, yet they appear to completely miss the correlation between responsible drinking and less drinking. This bill works to correct that. While a 2.4-cent per bottle tax is hardly enough to pull Wisconsin out of the doldrums of national alcoholism rankings, it’s a move in the right direction. The culture is changing, and will any luck, a truly happy hour is right around the corner.
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IP hash: 34f51f46
Wisconsin charges $2.00 per barrel of beer. (One barrel = about 14 cases = 31 gallons = 3968 ounces = 330.66 12-ounce bottles = 55.11 six-packs). Which means we charge $.036 per six-pack = $.006 per 12-ounce bottle.
Source: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/assembly/asm76/news/PDF%20Files/Beer%20Tax%20Information.pdf
Considering inflation, a $0.006 tax in 1969 should be adjusted to $0.03 today. ($11.62/barrel, as opposed to the current $2)
Consumption taxes and “sin” taxes should be supported by everyone, especially if they relieve tax burden from income and property taxes. -Beer drinker
IP hash: 97454428
Why should sin taxes be supported by everyone? They just take more money out of the economy, where it actually creates jobs, and gives it to the government for more worthless wasteful spending. And since this tax is regressive (hurts the poor more, just like the insane cig taxes), you’d think the liberals would be a little less excited about it, but there’s not a tax or fee WI legislators don’t want to raise.
Only in WI would people actually think raising taxes during a recession is a good idea.
IP hash: 34f51f46
Taxes take money out of the economy? Really? Have you ever thought about that, dude? Sending oil money to Saudi Arabia doesn’t even take money out of the economy, since they return the favor by buying our military weapons.
So, I send my beer tax or cigarette tax to Madison, then what? They dump gasoline on the mountain of cash and destroy its existence, right? Or, do they build bridges, pave roads, fix schools, hire teachers, pay for police, snow removal (Read: jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs) Or, do they do something corrupt with it, and have corrupt people spend it on cars, houses, fancy dinners, nice clothes (read: jobs, jobs, jobs)
1) It’s for the collective good and stability of social order. 2) Saving your money isn’t good for the economy, so open up your wallets and SPEND! (or else get ready to release it via taxes)
IP hash: 3412785f
Taxes take money away from production and consume it. This is destructive to an economy.
Government does not create jobs, it redistributes wealth from the more productive to the less productive. Every dollar that is spent by government is taken from some productive individual. The money spend on destroying cars in the Cash for Clunkers program could have been invested (i.e., saved) in the next Microsoft or Apple.
Saving money is not only good for the economy, it’s absolutely necessary.
Also, there is no such thing as “collective good” because there is no such entity as the “collective.” A society is merely a group of individuals. Therefore, what is good for a society is that which is good for individuals.
IP hash: 34f51f46
The strength of the middle class is MOST important for a thriving economy. The rich always claim to be the engine of strength, but it is truly those who consume who create jobs. More money in more hands is better. Redistributing wealth from the ultra-rich to the middle class should be the ultimate goal when considering tax schemes.
IP hash: 3412785f
“it is truly those who consume who create jobs.”
So consumption is production? What kind of double-speak is this? Before you can consume you must produce. (Unless of course you steal it from someone who did produce, which is what your redistribution scheme is all about.)
This is just the law of causality.
IP hash: 85ae2de9
When you run out of something, you need to make more of it.
Like electric windows in cars. At first, only Cadillacs and Loncolns had electric windows, but now most economy cars have them. From this example, do you want a factory making electric window motors for only the top crust or cars, or for every car?
Sure, you could give tax breaks to the rich, but they already have electric windows. See what I mean?
IP hash: 254a1c72
I think it is so ridiculous that people think this tax is going to cost jobs. Where is this going to cost jobs? The beer industry? Are you kidding me? People aren’t going to stop buying beer.
Also, this tax money would be a HUGE benefit to the state. It is such a Republican thing to say that they want less and less taxes, and yet they still want the same services. I didn’t even take econ and I know that less taxes means less money means less services.
If you want lower taxes and you don’t want to pay for things out of your locale, fine. But then why don’t YOU pay for the road that leads to your house, have the police send you a bill every time they make a cite someone for drunk driving in your area (this keeping your area safe) or have the police send you a bill after they clean up the broken glass, blood, and brains that are strewn all over the street when some drunken idiot kills someone. I think you’ll find that just a TAD more expensive than a extra few cents on a bottle of beer.
The tax has not been raised in 40 years. The same year the mighty Badger Herald came into existence. That to me is ludicrous.
However, I don’t think taxing it will actually live up to the buzz as far as stopping binge drinking or drunk driving. Those are cultural things that are going to be almost impossible to eradicate in WI, but it will at least bring revenue up to deal with the consequences of these issues.
Tax it all. Even as a poor college student with about $50 a week in disposable income, I’m not complaining about an extra few cents on beer. Joe six-pack can deal with it too.
IP hash: 3412785f
“The tax, which would add an additional 2.4 cents to every beer bottle you purchase, is just one of many steps needed to fully address the state’s alcohol problem.”
The state doesn’t have an alcohol problem; individuals have alcohol problems. This is collectivist nonsense. Don’t penalize me for someone else’s behavior.
“If the state wants to generate revenue off of beer consumption, they owe it to the public to use that money to fund programs aimed at dealing with Wisconsin alcoholism.”
The state owes it to the public to respect their freedoms. The state is not a nanny, it is the protector of rights. If the state wants to generate revenue off of beer consumption it should form a private company and produce beer instead of forcibly taking money from people.
IP hash: c1f2a6af
anyone who thinks an extra 2.4 cents a bottle will keep people from driving drunk or keep people from drinking any less than they already do is full of shit.
just call it what it is, a tax, don’t feed us this nonsense about trying to address the drinking problem with a nickel and diming type tax
I know it’s par for the course for politicians to spout that type of nonsense but someone please explain to me how a piddly little tax like that will do anything to affect alcoholism.
just tell us you are proposing to tax us without the spin that it’s actually going to help society
IP hash: 7e15300b
And here again we have the collectivist contradiction; they want to have their cake and eat it too. The columnist says that it will curb OWI numbers; supposedly via discouraging people to drink in general. If that’s so, then one of the above posters who claims that people won’t stop buying beer, therefore nobody in the beer industry will lose their jobs, must be wrong. Either way you have the liberal dichotomy: Propose the tax because of some “sin” of society, but know deep in your heart that the reason you’re doing it is to give more money to the state at the expense of both producers and consumers, because you’re an unhappy, jealous ignoramus.