The Graceless Politics of Oregon Alcohol Taxation

New bill to raise alcohol taxes comes after Task Force recommended against it

It’s not necessarily a matter of whether you support higher taxes on alcohol. There are arguments on both sides of this issue. Rather, it’s a question of whether a lawmaker can be trusted to listen to experts and the public, or, if instead, they can be relied upon to be graceless and ignore the very people she brought together to advise her on the issue of alcohol taxes.

But first, a reminder of the alcohol shenanigans that have gone on in my state of Oregon:

-Proposal to raise Oregon beer and wine taxes by up to 3000% fails
-Proposal to raise Oregon beer and wine taxes up to 500% fails.
-Oregon Health Authority runs TV ad calling wine bad for you.
-Oregon Health Authority buried report showing higher taxes won’t deter drinkers.
-Oregon Health Authority survey suggests state producers are corrupt
-Oregon alcohol regulators are keeping the good stuff for themselves.

Now what’s going on?

For many years, Oregon State Representative Tawna Sanchez from Portland has been itching to raise taxes on alcohol in the state. She has gone so far as to write legislation that would have increased taxes on alcohol by up to 3000%. These efforts failed due in large part to the clownish nature of the proposals.

So in the face of defeat, the good Representative Sanchez instead got the Oregon legislature to create a Task Force to study alcohol taxes in the state. The Task Force included members of the Oregon alcohol industry, but it included even more members of the “prevention” and “recovery” community and, of course, Representative Sanchez was the Chair.

It was always the case that this Task Force was designed to produce a recommendation that taxes on alcohol be raised that Ms. Sanchez could then use as a bloody shirt in support of a tax hike. It turns out, Representative Sanchez wasn’t even able to maneuver that into place. Instead, at the end of last year, the Oregon Task Force on Alcohol Pricing made no recommendation on alcohol tax increases. Moreover, when the Task Force asked the public to weigh in, those comments overwhelmingly opposed alcohol tax increases.

It should also be noted that in the course of the work done by Representative Sanchez’s Task Force, the following was discovered: