Got Beer Tax?

It seems suicidal, but a Wisconsin state representative has proposed a 2¢ per six-pack beer tax. Before I get any further, let me fully disclose here: I don't drink. Not beer, not wine, not even those electric-blue margatinis at certain national-chain tex-mex restaurants. So if the tax goes up on your beer, my teetotaling self won't be bothered by it.

Two things struck me, though, reading about this proposal: First, it's just 2¢. How much are you drinking if you find 2¢ per six pack a financial burden? My wife, who knows these sorts of things, assures me that there plenty of people who drink three six packs a day. Even at that, it's only an extra $21 a year. Of course, if you're drinking 18 beers a day, you may not have a day job, and that extra little bit may actually hurt. But clearly, if you're in that condition, you're probably the kind of person that the tax is meant to help.

Which leads me to the next point: "Raising the beer tax would raise $4.7 million a year more to pay for alcohol-abuse treatment," the article notes, "treatment needed by almost 600,000 Wisconsin residents in 2001, according to the University of Wisconsin Law School's Resource Center on Impaired Driving." While I do like the idea of helping people who need help, it disturbs me a little that we drink the equivalent of 235,000,000 six packs a year.

That's not all in cans, of course; opponents of the proposed tax point out, helpfully, that the tax would hurt breweries and families at fish fries.

While I'm not big on raising taxes--I think Wisconsin's budget troubles can be solved in other ways--it's hard to see this as a bad thing. Wisconsin's beer tax hasn't been raised in 25 years, and, if it had been indexed to inflation, it wouldn't be the 6¢ per gallon it is now, but $10. And if some of those three six-pack-a-dayers could get some help, well, then I think I can get behind this one.