Somewhere in the third week of the government shutdown, the Associated Press figured out how to make some average readers far distant from the Beltway get worked up about it. “Government shutdown may slow flow of Louisiana beer,” the headline declared.
How does that work? “The agency responsible for approving licenses for new breweries and new labels for beer distributed out of state — the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau — is among those with shuttered operations” during the shutdown.
The AP listed a few ways in which the shutdown hampers local brewers, but it focused on the labeling issue, which may be an issue on which you, dear reader, lack intimate familiarity.
Within the Department of the Treasury, you see, is a bureau widely known (relatively speaking) as the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, but legally named the Tax and Trade Bureau, or TTB. TTB has a handful of divisions including the Alcohol Labeling and Formulation Division. ALFD in turn has three offices.
ALFD’s Formulation/Malt Beverage and Distilled Spirits Office (let’s call it the F/MB&DSO) reviews and processes TTB Form 5100.31, the “Application for and Certification/Exemption of Label/Bottle Approval (COLA).”
Since Congress and the White House haven’t passed into law appropriations for the Treasury Department, all nonessential Treasury employees are furloughed and cannot work. That includes TTB, and in turn ALFD, and its crucial F/MB&DSO.
They say you never realize what you’ve got until it’s gone, and the government shutdown is another lesson in this. Before now, if an out of state brewery issued a new seasonal, you could simply purchase it across state lines thanks to the tireless work of the folks at UST’s TTB working in the ALFD at F/MB&DSO.
Without these federal workers, there are no Form 5100.31 approvals, and thus no interstate shipments of beer with new labels.
No F/MB&DSO, no Louisiana beer. Got it?
Of course, if you’re a particularly skeptical type, you may have a question that was never broached in that AP article:
Why in the world should a brewer need federal approval on new beer labels?
Once we ask that question, a thousand analogous questions come to mind. And in the asking, we expose the trick in so many stories about the crucial work of our expansive federal government. The trick is that the government’s work is often made necessary only by needless federal meddling in the first place.
The story on Louisiana beer brought to mind the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play “You Can’t Take It with You.”
A federal agent visits Grandpa to demand his tax payments. When Grandpa questions what he will get for his tax payment, the agent comes around to “Interstate Commerce.”
“If there weren’t Interstate Commerce,” the agent says, “nothing could go from one state to another. See?”
“Why not?” Grandpa asks. “They got fences?”
“No, they haven’t got fences. They’ve got laws!”
So, while Donald Trump still doesn’t have his physical barrier at the southern border, TTB and other federal bodies, amid their shutdowns, still have their proverbial fences–their federal liquor-control laws and regulations. They simply lack the bureaucrats who can open the proverbial gates.
The trick—you need government to overcome obstacles created by government—is so obvious, yet you’ll find commentators and reporters constantly lecturing their readers to be more grateful for government.
“[S]o many Americans who say they support cutting government programs don’t realize just how much they benefit from them,” a New York Times blogger wrote a few years back, making a typical argument.
The blogger then listed the largest “benefits” or “government social programs” that help Americans. The top two were tax deductions.
The argument is that without the federal government you wouldn’t have as many federal tax deductions. That’s is as sensible as saying that without the bully taking your sandwich, you wouldn’t have the juice box and crackers he left behind.
We wouldn’t need a federal “benefit” to keep some chunk of our income if the federal government wasn’t taking so much of our money in the first place. Pardon us if we don’t express gratitude. We wouldn’t need federal workers to allow interstate shipment of newly labeled beer if the federal government didn’t restrict interstate shipment of newly labeled beer.
A government shutdown is a bad thing—especially one this long. Many government functions are necessary. Federal workers, including the men and women at UST TTB ALFD F/MB&DSO who review Forms 5100.31, are generally publicly spirited people who rely on their paychecks to feed a family.
But when some reporter tries to tell you to be grateful that the federal government is opening a gate for you, ask them why the wall is there in the first place.
