Stay Poor and Thirsty My Friends

With his motto, "Stay thirsty my friends", the most interesting man in the world from the Dos Equis beer commercials should actually be working for the state of Pennsylvania as the spokesman for the Pa Liquor Control Board. Why you ask? In the Friday edition of The Times Leader, correspondent Andrew Seder wrote a great story on the levies attached to booze that we all buy from the state Wine & Spirit Shops. In case you didn't know, the state is whacking us big time on every bottle of hooch that we buy. Of course that is one reason they really don't want to get out of the liquor selling business. They are assassinating our pocketbooks with taxes and fees for every bottle we buy! Hang onto your drinks because this is going to be a long, but very informative GRIPE.

Right off the top, PA drops the 6% sales tax bomb on us like a bunker buster on a group of insurgents. This tax is standard on almost everything we buy. Secondly, they kick us in the sack with a 30% markup along with a handling fee which could be up to $2.00 a bottle. WHAT! Pay me $2.00 per bottle and I will stock my ass off! Next, and you will love this one, the boys in Harrisburg hammer us with an 18% levy thanks to a 75 year old tax which was created in 1936 to help pay for the cleanup and recovery of that years Johnstown Flood. (I keep seeing the word levy here which takes my brain to the bogus levy fee. That one just confuses me with rage! I have to keep focused before I bite a piece off my laptop!) Back to the booze. You read that right, a 75 year old tax to help recover from the Johnstown Flood in 1936! WHAT! ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME! When this tax was instituted, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President of The United States. This tax when levied on the residents of Pennsylvania was set at 10% and was intended to be temporary. It was put in place for a purpose which is no longer valid. Right now, you should be asking yourself, "I wonder if this 10% Johnstown Flood Tax is still in place"? The answer....YES IT IS! You didn't actually think they would repeal it did you? In fact according to johnstownfloodtax.com, the state gathered the 40 million dollars needed in 6 years with a little help from the federal government. Oh, it gets better. This tax has actually been increased twice, once in 1963 to 15% and again in 1968 to 18% on every bottle. Eighteen percent is where it stands today!

To sum it up, We The People are paying about 50% more on every bottle of booze due to FREAKIN' TAXES! Here's the kicker, the revenue from these taxes goes into the state's General Fund which means it may not go back into the state run booze stores. It can be used for anything they want to use it for. In fact, these liquor taxes generated $271,000,000.00 last year. That's 271 million for you English Majors. According to Stacey Witalec, spokesman for the LCB, "...That profit supports services and programs that benefit all Pennsylvanians". This scripted answer is what these pinheads give for everything that they do with our tax dollars. I want to know what programs does it fund? If it's for senior citizens I may lose it. Those old bastards get all of the lottery proceeds. My guess is this money goes to the system teat suckling parasites that are milking the system for everything they can get. (This will be a future Gripe soon to be released).

Don't despair, there is a movement, not a bowel movement in Harrisburg to revamp the states liquor system. This movement includes the privatization of the stores and the elimination of the 30% per bottle markup. The Einsteins in Harrisburg propose to also eliminate the Johnstown Flood Tax as well. Wow, that's a no brainer there. However, this proposal will add a new "Gallonage Tax" of between $8.25 to $12.00 per gallon based on the type of liquor and alcohol content. I knew it sounded too good to be true! What some state congressman want to do is put the stores into the private sector, eliminate the taxes that funded their costs to run the liquor stores and then whack the new store owners with this "Gallonage Tax" which they will pass right on to us, the consumer. In other words, the state gets their money and we get screwed yet AGAIN! I think when the most interesting man in the world does his commercials for the state of Pennsylvania, he should say, "Stay poor and thirsty by friends".

A Gripe Update: The Pierce St. Bridge mega pothole has been fixed. PennDot bolted down a steel plate to cover the massive pothole. Way to go Gripers!