Stop the Beer Tax Rollback
Reject HR 1305

Questions Congress Should Ask the Beer Industry

• The beer industry claims that beer taxes hurt working and low-income people most, yet producers, whenever they want, raise beer prices themselves to maximize profits.  What drives the industry?  Concern for poor people or concern for profits?
   
• If most beer drinkers consume in moderate amounts, why is it that, in most cases, beer is the beverage of choice for heavy drinkers, binge drinkers, drunk drivers and underage drinkers?  Why is beer, relative to liquor and wine, disproportionately consumed in hazardous amounts?
   
• Why should we cut beer taxes in half when that would result in hundreds of additional deaths in drunk driving and underage drinking incidents?
   
• Why should the beer industry get a tax cut that’s even bigger than the profits it makes on underage beer drinking? **
   
• Federal taxes on beer have been raised only once since Harry Truman was president, and today’s tax rate is less than 30% of what it would be had it only kept up with inflation.  Given the enormous toll of the nation’s existing alcohol-related public health and safety problems, why should Congress add a tax cut to the free ride the beer industry has already enjoyed?
   
• A new poll reveals that Americans – by a 2 to 1 margin (including a majority of drinkers) – oppose a beer tax roll back.   Why then should the U.S. Congress be considering this legislation?
   
• What empirical evidence exists to show that beer industry “responsibility” campaigns have worked to reduce alcohol problems in the last 20 years?
   
• Why hasn’t the beer industry implemented 1999 Federal Trade Commission recommendations for new voluntary advertising standards to reduce the appeal of beer advertising to underage youth?
   
• Why are the beer industry’s voluntary standards much weaker than those recently proposed by NBC for liquor advertising on television?

** Tax  cut = $1.7 billion
Calculation of profits from underage drinking:  Total retail sales of beer (2000) = $67.4 billion; beer consumed by underage drinkers = 11.4% of $67.4 billion = $7.68 billion.  Estimated profit on sales = 15%.  Profit from underage drinking = 15% of $7.68 billion = $ 1.15 billion.

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April 16, 2002

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