The Daily Alaska empire., 1947-02-19
LIQUOR TAX INCREASES
 PASS HOUSE
Amendments Both 10 Raise and Lower Amount of
 Increase Defeated

The Senate bill to increase the tax on liquor passed the House un- Scathed yesterday afternoon, but not before two attempts had beer made to amend the tax rate, one upward and once downward.
 The bill, as it was received from the Senate and now goes to tke Governor, would increase the taS on beer and other malt beverages to 10 cents a gallon instead of the present five cents, would raise the tax on wine with less than 2l percent of alcohol from Is cents to 25 cents, and would boost the tax on all liquors containing more than 21 percent alcohol from the present S2 to $3.
 : The first amendment came from Rep Maurice Johnson. who moved to have the tax on hard liquol raised only to $250 instead of S3 He pointed out that this tax was raised from S1 to S2 only two years ago and that the proposed increase would mean 8 200 per cent tax raise in two years.
 The liquor industry is one oi the largest taxpayers in the Terri tory" Rep. Johnson said, and i see nc reason for gouging it with ever-increasing taxes, just because | it is an easy means of raising the revenue
 Objects to Lowering Tax ] Rep. McCuteheon, to whom econ onmy' and higher" taxes are evi- dently synonymous, said that ht was surprised at Johnson's stand on the bill. Johnson, he said, had been screaming up and down the halls for more economy, yet he was voting against higher tax bill
 Following the loss of Rep. John- sons amendment, first by voice vote and then by roll call, Rep McCutcheon proposed an amend ment to increase the tax on beer to 25 cents a gallon, the tax on wine to 50 cents a gallon. and the tax on hard" liquor to $6 a gal lon, with the proviso that half of the revenues go to the General Fund and half to the School Fund. This amendment brought a roar of protest from Rep. "Heinie" Sni- der.
 "Is there any law to stop man from making his own beer?" he asked Speaker Gill.
 If the prices gets too high, ' Snider said, I'll tell the Mrs. to get out the bottles and we'll make our own beer" He predicted that a tax increase such as that proposed by McCutcheon would "open the door for the bootleggers.
 Others Are Agreed
 General agreement to this latter statement was expressed by Reps. Dewey Anderson and w w. Laws Rep Andrew Hope said that he would not want his children edu- cated with booze money" and even Rep Edward Anderson sup porting the negative, proving that this heretofore imprevious Nome Anchorage axis can be preached.
 You are a New Dealer Rep. Vukovich told McCutcheon and the voters repudiated the New Deal CTS in the last election
 In defepse of his amendment, Rep. McCutcheon said that he is certain, through experience he gain ed while with the OPA, that the proposed high tax will not fall up- on the dealers themselves, but will be passed on to the consumers. By some peculiar arithmetic he calcu- lated that the proposed $4 per gal lon increase on hard liquor would amount only to 40 cents fifth.
 Despite his pleas, however, Rep. McCutcheon could muster only five votes in favor of his amendment, to Is against.
 Under suspension of the rules, the unamended liquor tax bill was passed by a vote of 2l to 2, with one absent, and is to be returned to the Senate for transmittal to the Governor.