It’s enough to drive you to drink.

by Rob Roper

A handful of Democrats presented their bill, H.376, which would increase the excise tax on liquor and the gallonage (turns out that’s a word) tax on wine and beer by an estimated total of $16 to $17 million on hard after-working Vermonters. This represents for beer and hard cider a whopping jump from 26¢ per gallon tax to $1.36. For wine, an even bigger whop from 55¢ to $3.75, and spirits will jump from $1.10 to $1.36, plus see a doubling of the gross revenue tax the on spirits and fortified wines double from 5 to 10 percent.

In addition to this, the bill would create a novel, automatic increase in the tax every year linked to the Consumer Price Index – something nobody on the committee or from legislative council had ever heard of in regard to a tax. And mind you, this is all on top of the 6 percent sales tax.

Craft brewing and distilling are responsible for some amazing Vermont business success stories – and let’s face it we don’t have many of these — and have grown to become pillars of the “Vermont Brand”. Our breweries alone generate, according to a recent presentation by the Craft Brewers Association, $419 million into our state economy, and attract many thousands of tourists to all corners of Vermont. Distillers like Barr Hill and Smugglers Notch are wining national and international awards. We even produce some pretty decent wines. (I notice Rep. Lucy Boyden (D-Cambridge) whose family owns Boyden Valley Winery is not a co-sponsor of this bill. Everybody’s a conservative when it’s their own money and freedoms at stake!)

Now, it seems I have to make this point pretty often in these pages and here I go again in case folks forget…. Our neighbor to the east, New Hampshire, has no sales tax on alcoholic beverages (they do have a 30¢ per gallon tax on beer and a 5 percent tax on wine which these increases would dwarf). There is already a solid incentive to hop the border to make your booze purchases, and a lot of people do. This law will make a bad situation even worse.

Speaking of worse, H.376 doesn’t stop with taxes. It would also require strict and unique mandatory labeling of alcoholic beverages with nutritional information, serving sizes, and the big one, a cancer warning. (Though oddly not cirrhosis of the liver.) Asked if any other states require cancer warnings for alcoholic beverage, Rep. Kate Nugent (D-S. Burlington), lead sponsor of the bill, replied that Ireland did. Fun fact, but, yeah… um… not a state.

Forgetting for the moment the added expense and logistical headaches that would come with forcing businesses to label their products differently for distribution in Vermont as opposed to other states (and it’s not like alcohol doesn’t already require a standard health warning), do we really want to go out of our way call out some of our most popular brands as potentially causing cancer? What’s next? Requiring a diabetes warning on maple syrup. “Cheese makes you fat and leads to heart attacks!” “Skiing may result in broken bones and death!”

Seriously, is there any entrepreneurial business success story in our state that the political Left isn’t intent on taxing and regulating to death? It would appear not.

So, who are the sponsors behind this Happy Hour Tax? Rep. Kate Nugent (D-S. Burlington), Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (D-Westminster), Rep. Brian Cina (P-Burlington), Rep. Mari Cordes (D-Lincoln), Rep. Troy Headrick (D-Burlington), Rep. Jubilee McGill (D-Bridport), Rep. Carol Ode (D-Burlington), Rep. Phil Pouech (D-Hinesburg), and Rep. Monique Priestley (D-Bradford). I notice Headrick’s district includes a good chunk of UVM. Good luck explaining your massive beer tax to that constituency!

The rise of brew pubs and craft beer is a fantastic lesson in deregulation leading to greater access to more products of higher quality. The Vermont Brewers’ Association tells the story on their website:

Prior to the opening of Vermont Pub & Brewery [Vermont’s first brew pub in 1988], Greg Noonan enlisted the aid of Bill Mares, who was then the state legislator, to seek changes in the existing legislation governing the on-site sale of manufactured beer. Together, Greg and Bill rewrote the language of law to allow manufacturers to sell their malt beverages on-site. After a certain amount of drafting acrobatics, that idea found favor with the Liquor Control Board, and then progressively with four legislative committees, both legislative chambers, and finally, Governor Madeline Kunin.

Madeline Kunin for crying out loud!

Will H.376 get off the wall and into law? Time will tell, but the chair of the Government Operations Committee where the bill is under review is chaired by Matt Birong (D-Vergennes), who late last year proposed a 100 percent tax on all beer with an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 6 percent or more. Thankfully that idea was nipped in the bud before it made it into legislation, but it does illustrate where the dude is coming from.

I guess Montpelier’s strategy is to tax us all to the point of driving us to drink, and then tax that too.

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com