BCT Editorial – 12/5/08

This page was last updated on December 6, 2008.

Drink up; Editorial; Beaver County Times; December 5, 2008.

This editorial is pretty much a regurgitation of two previous editorials also entitled “Drink up” (5/5/08 & 9/28/08). As a reminder, “Drink up” #1 told us scaling back the drink tax “would be a mistake.” In two other editorials (“Grow up” & “Benchmark”), the Times weighed in against a voter referendum to reduce the tax.

While cheerleading for the Allegheny County drink tax (and its car rental tax companion), I don’t believe the Times ever explained why people who buy alcoholic drinks in bars and restaurants and/or who rent cars should further subsidize people who choose to ride the already taxpayer-subsidized PAT buses. Instead, why not levy a tax specific to newspaper sales? After all, I see more people reading newspapers on the buses than I see drinking or driving on the buses. <g>

Anyway, onto the editorial’s tortured logic. Because the tax raised more revenue than expected, the Times asks, “If the tax was such a business killer, wouldn’t revenues have reflected that?” Note the editorial used tax revenue as a guide, not the net income of the businesses. Until the Times can tell us what the businesses’ net income would have been with and without the tax, it can’t credibly say the tax didn’t have an adverse effect on those businesses.

Finally, you have to love the closing paragraph, “It’s time to put this debate aside and move on. There are better things to argue about.” That’s a nice position to take when you’re talking about someone else’s business. Other than taxes that affect the Times, the Times hasn’t found a tax it doesn’t like.