4.  THE SAGA OF THE MOOSE'S TOOTH
    by Vin Suprynowicz 
    Special to TLE

Eight Western states (but not California) outperformed the rest of the
country in economic growth during much of the 1990s -- while Hawaii and
Alaska suffered the most pathetic growth rates, according to a Commerce
Department report released June 4 in Washington.

The report's authors blamed California's sub-par economic performance on
slowdowns among defense contractors. In attempting to explain Hawaii's
worst-in-the-nation economic performance during the period (the Aloha
state's economy actually shrank by 0.3 percent), "Government analysts
said that the state ... was hard hit by the 1997-98 Asian currency crisis,
which cut into the state's tourism business," reports AP economics
writer Martin Crutsinger.

What "government analysts" apparently failed to note or mention
is that, among the 50 American commonwealths, Hawaii is the most nearly
perfect model of a high-tax, single-party welfare state, where Democratic
Party pork and make-work public sector jobs proliferate unchecked by any
substantial conservative or libertarian opposition, and where the
now-standard run of "environmental" restrictions on business
activity not only proliferate like Kudzu (you can't even put up a billboard
anywhere in Hawaii), but are then geometrically multiplied by restrictions
on virtually any productive land use which might somehow offend aboriginal
sensibilities.

That traditionally low-tax, less-government havens like Idaho, New Mexico,
Utah, and New Hampshire (the last proving the trend is not merely regional)
would also lead the nation in job and profit growth is no surprise. At
first glance, however, this would appear to leave Alaska as the largest
remaining mystery in this week's report.

Why would the once laissez-faire northern empire place next-to-last in
growth with an average increase of just 0.5 percent during the eight-year
period, faring even worse than Sen. Byrd's barefoot pork palace of West
Virginia, which weighed in at a predictably anemic 2.4 percent?

The answer, of course, is that things have changed in Alaska. Matt Jones of
the Bear Tooth Theater Pub explains there was no cap on microbrewery
production or the number of locations he and partner Rod Hancock could open
when they launched their popular, upscale Anchorage venture in 1996.

But then their competitors at Alaska's Cabaret, Hotel, and Restaurant
Retailers Association got busy, dispatching highly-paid lobbyists to the
state Legislature to warn that "If we don't watch out, Alaska will
have a brew pub on every corner, like they do down in Seattle!"

Oh, the humanity.

"We were never contacted or asked about it," the microbrewer told
me over lunch at his spiffy new joint last month. "Then suddenly we
got this letter saying we were grandfathered in, but we can never open
another restaurant, when it was written right there in our business plan
that we'd always figured on expanding and opening subsequent
locations."

In 1999, Jones and Hancock and the owners of Anchorage's competing Glacier
Brew House were "allowed" to open second locations (Jones and
Hancock started down the street at The Moose's Tooth Saloon), but only in
exchange for agreeing to purchase otherwise unnecessary $150,000
full-liquor licenses for each location, and accepting production caps on
their microbreweries of 4,800 kegs per year.

What does this mean to Jones and Hancock's fast-growing business, which has
already created 200 new Alaska jobs?

"Due to the level playing field there, Oregon is now known as the
mecca of handbrewed beer, because people can live and die by their
wits," Jones explains. "If you're a beer connoisseur you visit
Portland. But now no will will ever come to Anchorage for that. The state
is shooting itself in the foot. We just had a meeting, and it looks like
we're going to have to farm out the brewing of our extra production"
(to meet current-year customer demand) "to Oregon. So those jobs and
that tax revenue will all go to Oregon. What we'll have to do is pace our
production here so as not to reach 75,000 gallons
till December so our five brewery workers don't have to get laid off in October.

"We put together a great team of brewers, and they were real excited
about the chance to grow, here. But now they're on pins and needles,
wondering if they're even going to have their jobs."

Oregon's ranking in this week's Commerce Department survey of economic
growth? Third best in the nation, at 6.8 percent, interestingly enough.

The real correlation with economic growth or slowdown would appear to have
far less to do with defense contracts -- or any Asian currency crisis --
than it does with whether a state's lawmakers strive to keep taxes low and
stay the employment-strangling hand of the "regulatory"
racketeers. Once a laissez-faire paradise for the self-sufficient, Alaska
now seems to have instead fallen into the hands of the protection rackets
and their professional legislative wheel-greasers.

Too bad. Pretty country up there ... if only they'd let a guy make a living.
- - -
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to
Privacy Alert, 1475 Terminal Way, Suite E, Reno, NV 89502 -- or dialing
775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the
Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224

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