From Last Call:
By 1910 the federal government was drawing more than $200 million per year from the bottle and the keg — 71 percent of all internal revenue and more than 30 percent of federal revenue overall. Only external revenue — the tariff – provided a larger share of the federal budget
The federal government today spends about $4 trillion per year. If we funded 30% of it with a liquor tax, we’d need to raise $1.2 trillion from liquor taxes alone! That is well over triple the amount we raise from corporate income taxes.and about 75% of the amount we raise from the individual income tax and 30% more than we raise from payroll taxes! Your mileage may vary on what these data points demonstrate.
