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Posts Tagged ‘bourbon’

Anybody with any sense knows you don’t want to mess with somebody who likes to drink whiskey, but it turns out the people who make the stuff can be scrappers too.

Yesterday Kentucky’s bourbon distillers turned out in force in Frankfort to protest the legislature’s proposed 6-cent sales tax on booze. In a demonstration reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party that ignited the American Revolution, the protestors dumped bourbon whiskey on the front steps of the Capitol — a revolting act if ever there was one.

Said Jimmy Russell, master distiller for Wild Turkey, who was quoted by the Associated Press today, “They’ve always been taxing us to death over the years.”

While beer and bourbon trucks circled the Capitol, other folks crowded into the Rotunda to holler and wave signs.

The “water of life” is important to Kentucky’s economy. Kentuckians invented bourbon, and most true bourbon is made here. And it is heavily taxed in this state. But Kentucky faces a $456 million revenue shortfall, and yesterday the House A&R Committee approved a plan to double the cigarette tax from 30 to 60 cents a pack and add the 6-cent sales tax to retail liquor, wine and beer to help erase the deficit.

What they should have done is left bourbon alone and raised the tobacco tax to at least a dollar a pack. But then smokers would probably be emptying their ash trays on the Capitol lawn.

I can understand the opposition to higher “sin taxes,” but it’s better than raising the income or property tax, or the sales tax on necessities. And it’s also better than escalating tuition for strapped college students, losing matching federal funds for children’s health insurance or closing all the rest areas on the interstates. We’ve gone way beyond cutting fat in the state budget in recent years. We’re now shaving bones.

If only Kentuckians could get as worked up about hungry elderly people and homeless children as they do about taxes, this state would be a better place.

I suppose if lawmakers have learned anything from this, it’s that you had better think twice before you pick a fight with a Wild Turkey.