Beer drinkers in the Mountain State are struggling to raise revenue in a bad economy. Some members of the state’s legislature think they have a solution: tax beer.
West Virginia House Health and Human Resources Committee Chairman Don Perdue, who sponsored the bill, says that an increase in the tax is necessary. His plan to earmark funds raised by the tax for substance abuse programs.
West Virginia beer drinkers wonder why that should be their responsibility. After all, many note, every beer drinker is not destined to abuse it – so why should the full burden of protecting those who do fall on them? It’s a bit like jacking up gym membership fees for everyone to account for those who are overweight.
And it’s not a small increase. The beer tax sits at $5.50 per barrel today. The House plans to increase the tax to $19.25, an increase of about 250%. Perdue says that the increase would raise $20 million.
Supporters of the measure say that the cost is merely pennies per drink and won’t affect most moderate and social drinkers. Still, at a public hearing, Ralph Winter, representing the Teamsters Union, said, “Beer, in my opinion, is the middle-class beverage. As we all know, in this current recession we’ve been through and are still in, there’s nothing worse than another tax on a middle-class worker.”
The directed nature of the tax seems to be what is driving most of the opposition. But Wayne Coombs, director of the West Virginia Prevention Resource Center, says that the “hidden tax” of substance abuse affects everyone. His Center estimates that the state spends $450 million annually in costs for health care and prisons directly related to substance abuse. Using those numbers, the tax would look to be a bargain.
But is it fair to shift the costs of substance abuse programs onto the shoulders of those who may drink responsibly? What do you think?
(* Extra points if you can identify the inspiration for my title today.)
Gaston from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”. Unless Disney was quoting from someone else, anyway.
Beauty and the Beast
I agree that a tax increase on beer that large is pretty ridiculous. The government is losing money everywhere so I guess every little bit helps, but still, responsible drinkers have done nothing wrong to adhere the additional taxation. I hope this doesn’t spread country wide…
Beauty and the Beast – Gaston 🙂
Why not tax the substance abusers? Better yet, they could sell expensive beer in the rehab and correctional facilities to fund their entire operations. Sorry, just thinking out loud.
Booo! Raise the tobacco tax more, increase vehicle registration fees. Just don’t touch my beer.
Wayne Coombs should — pardon my bluntness, but it’s late — shut up until he has real numbers instead of estimates. I follow this kind of thing, and these estimates, when challenged, have turned out to be way overblown. A recent study in New Zealand found that “estimates” of costs from excess alcohol consumption — NZ$4.8 billion — were terribly inflated: the actual costs, when you sat down and took the time to tally them instead of estimating, were NZ$662 million, and alcohol taxes contributed NZ$516 million to government revenues already. Just one example. I suspect that if we took the “estimates” Coombs has offered and run the REAL numbers they’d be similarly inflated. Don’t base policy on these estimates; they’re not worth the paper they’re printed on. Charging every beer drinker for the damage the alcoholics do is like giving everyone on the road a speeding ticket, just because they’re driving.
Things are getting more and more interesting… tax on beer. At least it makes more sence then the proposition to tax CHOCOLATE in the UK a year or so ago… There was a similar suggestion to tax alcohol and alcopop drinks in Australia…