If President Obama is planning to pay for an expanded government role in health care with an increased tax on alcoholic beverages he will meet with stiff resistance from at least some Democrats. "I have one of the most Irish districts in the United States of America and there are folks in my district that would consider a massive increase on the beer tax as a hate crime," Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, whose district includes brewers Samuel Adams and Harpoon, told the The BNA Daily Tax Report.
A bill to lower the beer tax to $9 a barrel from $18, restoring the tax to the level it had been at before it was increased in 1991, has about 200 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.
