Beer Tax Battle Online

Says the Washington Post:

“The use of the Web has given rise to two contradictory trends. It has provided improved access to the political system for outsiders and mechanisms for spontaneous expression of public attitudes. But there also are more opportunities for finely tuned manipulation by politicians and special interests willing to pay the costs.... In a lobbying drive now underway, brewer Anheuser-Busch Inc. is using advertising on the Web to bolster a traditional lobbying drive to win House sponsors for legislation that would kill a 1990 tax on beer. The ads, which appear on sites run by such publications at Congressional Quarterly and National Journal, drive traffic to a beertax.org site, run by Anheuser-Busch. That site — expressly designed for ‘government officials and staff, journalists and other opinion leaders on public policies that impact the brewing industry’ — tells visitors: ‘Every time you buy a beer, an incredible 44% of the price you pay comes from taxes.... While excise taxes collected from wealthy Americans have been eliminated, working Americans continue to pay the beer tax at the rate of $65 million a week.’ So far, 224 House members, more than a majority, have joined on as co-sponsors.”

The Post article does not mention the nonprofit Web site and grassroots network or the dramatic poll numbers opposing the beer tax rollback.

Found via VoxPolitics.