Message to Senators: Oppose Industry Bill to Slash Beer Taxes

On August 3, 2007, Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) introduced Senate bill S. 1995, an identical Senate version of beer-industry-backed House bill (H.R. 1610), that would slash the federal excise tax on beer by 50%, to its 1951 level. Please urge your Senators to stand up to the beer lobby and protect public health by opposing S. 1995. Ask him or her instead to consider a well-justified increase in alcohol taxes to provide needed funds for children’s health care and other domestic spending priorities.

Subject:

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

(Edit Letter Below)

As a constituent of yours, I urge you to refrain from co-sponsoring beer-industry backed legislation (S. 1995) that would irresponsibly slash beer taxes by half. I urge you to reject this unwise bill, and instead support a long-overdue increase in all alcohol excise taxes to reduce the deficit or pay for key healthcare programs.

Current federal and state taxes on alcoholic beverages do not 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.

Alcohol tax increases have been rare and modest. Beer and wine taxes have been raised only once in the past 56 years, liquor taxes only twice. 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.

A beer tax cut would not benefit the vast majority of consumers. About one-third of adults don't drink at all, and among those who do, most drink so little that they would barely notice a tax decrease (or increase). Alcohol tax cuts would benefit only producers and the 20% of drinkers who imbibe heavily and consume 85% of the alcohol.

Cheaper beer would worsen rates of underage drinking and its harms. A large body of research has established that higher alcohol prices are one of the most effective means of reducing underage consumption. Both the National Academies of Science and the Office of the Surgeon General have respectively called for reducing the availability of alcohol to underage youth by increasing the cost of obtaining it.

Given the enormous toll of the nation's existing alcohol-related public health and safety problems (which cost our country more than $175 billion per year), why should Congress add a tax cut to the free ride the beer industry has enjoyed for so long? If anything, beer and other alcohol excise taxes should be increased instead.

I respectfully request that you reject special-interest beer industry appeals to lower federal excise taxes on beer. Please let me know your views on this issue, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

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