Even as Oregon State Rep Ben Cannon’s completely stupid tax on beer has up and died, he’s already brewing up a new way to fuck local breweries. Sure, Ben’s heard the expected boo’s and hisses that greeted his 1900% tax increase on beer and now he’s coming right back with a slightly more palatable tax that would hit larger breweries much more than smaller ones – what he refers to as a two-tier system of brewery rectal soreness (ok, so he doesn’t REALLY call it that but that’s still what it is).
There are those that say that a beer tax is long overdue. True, the beer tax in our fine state is one of the lowest around and hasn’t been raised in about 30 years but let’s think this through shall we?
Why now? Why penalize one of the few money-making industries that we have left in our state? We’re proud of our breweries and we take our beer seriously. Shouldn’t our breweries be rewarded for producing a popular product by being left out of the money-grubbing Salem clusterfuck we call state government?
Why just beer? Why not wine? Why not spirits? Hell, why not coffee or soda? If the argument is that we need more money for rehab, let’s spread the hurt a little huh? It seems shallow to only attack beer.
Even a two-tier system does little to hide the fact that breweries are being singled out. Now I’m not condoning a tax at all – in fact, I’d rather that none of the aforementioned beverages received a new tax because every damn one of them is a profitable export for the industrious producers of our fine state. No, instead I’d rather Oregon stuck to solving it’s problems another way. Let’s see…. How about this? What if we took all of the money we spend on fatty government and their perpetually stupid bills and propositions and shoved THAT money into a fund to help finance recovery programs? After all, it looks to me like more than a few folks in Oregon government are addicted to ridiculous ideas. Perhaps we could call it “shit head tax”?
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
– Why now? —
Taxation shouldn’t be viewed as a penalty. Taxes pay for public services to which we would otherwise not privy.
“We’re proud of our breweries and we take our beer seriously.”
So pay the extra dollar. Don’t buy the shitty beer and kill two birds with one stone: help your local brewer and your community. Ta-fucking-da! Makes it easy to stay proud. I’d pay now.
– Why just beer? —
You’re all sorts of right.
Re: rehab money: Rehab works as poorly as cold-turkey quitting. Money for rehab is a terrible argument.
We should tax the hell out of sodas and all the faux waters out there. At least folks filling their bodies with high fructose corn syrup would be paying for decent roads.
And, yes, wines should definitely share in the same taxing to which beer is subjected.
If you’re choosing one industry to levy a tax against, how can you consider it anything BUT a penalty?
Most juices have more sugar in them per ounce than soda, yet people always pick on sodas.
Face it, MB, you see taxes as a way to PENALIZE things you don’t like.
extramsg, That is so true. A tax aimed only at one market segment of a given industry is a penalty. To tax beer but not wine and spirits is complete nonsense. The government is very transparent here. They see beer as the market that can bear the brunt of their tax simply because beer has a lower tax. A lower beer tax here has meant a thriving beer industry. Why should we tax a thriving industry? Every time we do that it pushes those manufacturers elsewhere. This tax hurts the economy and it hurts the consumer.