Back to normal

Brr!

Ok back to normal if you like sub-zero temperatures and snow. -14 degrees this AM! Freakin Balmy!

Lets see whats going on this week.. Todd is brewing up some beer for our client in Spring Green and the boys are kegging up a ginormous amount of beer as well. Lucky me? Getting ready to file for taxes. Hey I got an idea for an economic stimulus plan! Make all breweries that produce under 15,000 bbls exempt from excise taxes and give a break to the Regional brewers till they get to 60,000! Lets do the math shall we? This past year we produced 5100 bbls which equates to $40,800 in revenue for GWB and our own Governor Doyle. If we were exempt of that tax your favorite little brewery could add a position or two for new employees, upgrade our bottling line so we are more profitable and efficient or . The result would be more revenue would roll back to the Government in the form of income and property taxes.

I like it!

$40,800 might not seem like a lot so lets look at the bigger picture shall we? (we are pretty convinced its a big thing)

In 2007 there are 1,463 craft breweries in the good ol' USA - of which 1,420 are independantly owned and operated by guys and gals like Todd and Myself. Of those 1,463 breweries - 392 are considered Microbreweries (15,000 bbls or less annual production) and 975 brewpubs.

For this little exercise we will concentrate on the Microbreweries and the Brewpubs. The 2007 produced volume for the small guys was 1,687,111 barrels of beer which generated

$11,809,777 of FEDERAL revenue. Cant get you all the State info - sorry!

How many jobs, How much equipment, how much of a better standard of life would those dollars produce and in turn what kind of revenue would it ultimately generate for going against that TRILLION dollar deficit. Not just revenue from the breweries but from the grain suppliers, glass suppliers, crown suppliers, printers, advertising folks, grocery stores, clothing stores, vehicle sales, Downtown USA etc etc. I think you get the picture.

If we don't start seriously taking care of the little guys running the small business's of the USA there wont be many of us left.

Being a father of two I work hard at instilling into my kiddos what a promise is. When they are small its easy to explain a promise as "ya gotta do what you say your going to do" Many BIG promises were made during this last election period so its time to pony up and do the right thing.

To OUR newly elected and incumbent Wisconsin officials:

Governor Doyle, Senator Vinehout and Rep Radcliffe - Ya gonna do what you said your going to do?

To newly elected and incumbent US officials:

Mr. President Elect Obama, Representative Kind, Senators Feingold and Kohl - Ya gonna do what you said your going to do?

edit 2/12/09 (Rep Kind had lent his voice and support for the Brewer's Excise and Economic Relief Act of 2009 - THANK YOU!)