• Every time one of America's 75 million beer drinkers picks up a six-pack, 43 percent of the cost comes directly from taxes.

• Without taxes, a $5 six-pack would cost only $2.85.

• Since 1990, when beer taxes were boosted as part of a larger tax package, the beer industry has lost 60,000 jobs.

• American brewers pay seven times more in taxes than they earn in profits.

The other taxes that were a part of the 1990 tax package -- on yachts, private planes, jewelry and furs -- have all been repealed. Since nearly two-thirds of all the beer sold in America each year is purchased by households earning less than $45,000, the beer taxes fall heaviest on the relatively less affluent. Those that drink just one six-pack a week wind up handing over $112 in taxes each year to the government.

Source: Adam Thierer (Heritage Foundation), "Heady With the Power to Tax Beer," Washington Times, September 15, 1996.