TOO FAR! Government Using Obamacare to Come After Beer

Because with great regulation comes great repressability, as the government is now cracking down on those little things in life that make it not so bad.

One of those things is craft beers. The kind that hipsters and beer aficionados alike keep close to their hearts. But not only that, it’s a boon to our economy. As the Brewer’s Association tells us…

Small and independent American craft brewers contributed $55.7 billion to the U.S. economy in 2014. The figure is derived from the total impact of beer brewed by craft brewers as it moves through the three-tier system (breweries, wholesalers and retailers), as well as all non-beer products like food and merchandise that brewpub restaurants and brewery taprooms sell.

The industry also provided more than 424,000 jobs, with more than 115,000 jobs directly at breweries and brewpubs, including serving staff at brewpubs.

So not only is beer good, it’s good for everyone, even if they don’t drink it. It generates billions for the economy, and creates jobs. It’s an awesome aspect of American life.

So of course, government wants to ruin it.

How? Well, some bureaucrats that will never meet you think that beer is making you too unhealthy because you’re unaware of how many calories are in it. So, utilizing the 3,000 tome that is Obamacare, they’re going to regulate the craft beer industry into labeling every beer they make with the amount of calories it contains. Failure to do so means they can’t sell it in a restaurant chain with over 20 locations.

Understand that this is really bad for most craft breweries, because the majority of them are small businesses, and moving to comply with these laws will cost them dearly. Americans for Tax Reform have weighed in.

The Cato Institute estimates the Obamacare calorie labeling requirements will cost a business as much as $77,000 to implement. For larger beer companies, this is a drop in the bucket, but for small, local craft brewers it represents a substantial cost that they must pay. As a result, it creates a significant disadvantage compared to larger beer companies who can better absorb the cost of this new regulation.

This means that the brewery will have to do a few things to make sure they’re all nice and legal. They’ll either have to lay off workers, increase the expense of their product, cut costs, or just shut down altogether.

How many billions of dollars will this take out of our economy, and how many jobs will this cost if these small businesses are forced to to carry the weight of the government on their back? We’re about to find out, because this regulation hits this December.

And all this for a primarily useless law. Only 16% of people actually care about the calorie intake of their food, according to a study by Arizona State.

So the tl;dr here is that some people in DC have decided to place regulations on businesses they’ll never go to, that will cost the jobs and livelihoods of people they’ll never meet, in order to see to the “health” of people who aren’t concerned.

Today it’s just the breweries. Who will the politicians come for next in the interest of the public good?

The post TOO FAR! Government Using Obamacare to Come After Beer appeared first on RedState.