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Tell Congress to Raise Beer Taxes, not Lower Them (Reject H.R. 836)
The beer industry is again seeking to rob the Treasury and enrich itself at the expense of public health and safety by pushing a self-serving bill (H.R. 836) that would slash the federal excise tax on beer by 50%, to its 1951 level.
Please urge your legislator to oppose this unwise bill. Ask him or her instead to consider a well-justified increase in alcohol taxes to provide needed funds for health care reform and other domestic spending priorities.
Beer-industry representatives will be in Washington, D.C. in late March and early April, 2009 hoping to cash in on more than $5 million in campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle and add co-sponsors to the beer-tax rollback bill. Please urge your legislator to OPPOSE H.R.826!
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
Subject: Raise Beer Taxes, Don't Lower Them (Reject H.R. 836)
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,
I am writing to ask that you reject co-sponsorship of H.R. 836, a beer-industry bill that would irresponsibly slash beer taxes by half. With difficult decisions looming on how to pay for health care reform and other policy proposals and restore fiscal balance, Congress should instead look at increasing the tax on beer and other alcoholic-beverages, just as Congress recently tapped tobacco taxes to help pay for children's health insurance programs.
Reducing taxes on beer and other alcoholic beverages is bad fiscal and public health policy. Lower alcohol taxes would add to the deficit, reward and encourage heavy drinking, and attract more young drinkers. In addition, current federal and state taxes on alcoholic beverages don't come close to offsetting the huge public health and safety costs of alcohol consumption - estimated at $184 billion per year, including $62 billion per year for the costs of underage drinking alone.
Federal taxes on beer have been raised only once (1991) since Harry Truman was president. Today's tax rate is less than 30% of what it would be had it only kept up with inflation since 1951. As a result of Congress' failure to adjust the tax for inflation since the last increase in 1991, the Treasury has lost some $24 billion in revenues that could have helped support under-funded health and human needs programs or reduce the deficit.
Most consumers would barely notice a beer tax decrease (or increase), if at all. That's because more than one-third of adults don't drink at all, and among those who do, most drink so little that they would hardly be affected. Alcohol tax cuts would benefit only producers and the 20% of drinkers who imbibe heavily and consume 85% of the alcohol.
A 2008 report of the Congressional Budget Office estimated that modestly increasing and reforming alcohol taxes could generate almost $28 billion in new revenue over five years.
Please reject H.R. 836 and when the time comes to find new resources for important health and social programs, instead support long-overdue increases in federal excise taxes on alcoholic-beverages. I would appreciate knowing your views on this issue, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
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