Downsizing pushed the Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to adopt tech solutions that it could have tried years ago.
With the Department of Government Efficiency aiming to reduce the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy, the Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has not been immune. The agency recently reported a 13 percent reduction in its workforce since last year. While much of this appears to have come in the form of “voluntary resignations,” it’s clear that many of DOGE’s policies are directly targeted at encouraging such attrition.
The TTB is the primary federal regulatory body responsible for alcohol. The bulk of alcohol regulation has taken place at the state and local level since the end of Prohibition, but the feds have kept their hands in the pie through this agency, which oversees myriad tax issues, trade practice rules, and a label approval regime that determines what illustrations you’re allowed to see on your favorite beer can.
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C. Jarrett Dieterle is a nonresident senior fellow at the R Street Institute and a legal policy fellow for the Manhattan Institute.
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