DISCUS and Liquor Taxes

[beans]

Here is an interesting article from The Hill, about liquor lobbist organisation, DISCUS.

New Mexico was the latest and most dramatic example of the booze lobby’s newfound clout. As state governors and legislators faced perhaps their worst fiscal outlook in recent memory, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) this year repelled 27 out of 32 runs at increasing liquor taxes. Efforts in three state legislatures — Arkansas, Michigan and Pennsylvania — still are pending.

For an industry that long has been the poster boy for vice — and consequently the whipping boy for easy tax increases — it was a remarkable turn of events. But DISCUS’s successes suggest not just one-time victories in individual states but an effort by the organization to alter fundamentally the way government views the liquor industry.

Perceptions, changes in terminology and a different view on the affects of taxes upon the server, bartender and restaurant owner. Good stuff.

Also, I gotta love the following statment by DISCUS Vice President, Mark Gorman:

“It’s the people who can least afford these job-killing taxes that are affected most by them,” .... “Waitresses, bartenders, busboys, clerks — those are the folks whom the bartender says, ‘I can get by with two less.’

“Restaurants don’t make much money on [a patron] and the lettuce on his plate,” Coleman added. “It’s the martinis he drinks while he’s eating that lettuce on his plate.”

edit: just dub me the typo queen

Edited December 18, 2003 by beans (log)