Jim Puff is a Kansas entrepreneur. He has been in the grocery store business for 43 years, and owns a convenience store, a cafe, a catering company and a grocery store in Alma, Kansas.

Unfortunately, in order to invest in his businesses and provide jobs for his employees, Jim must battle Kansas liquor laws. While some of Kansas’ neighboring states permit grocery stores to sell full-strength beer, his stores must make do with reduced alcohol content beer, or 3.2% beer.

How would modernizing Kansas liquor laws help Jim Puff and others like him? Right now, Kansas grocery stores may not sell full-strength beer. Consumers wishing to buy full-strength beer must go to a different store that is only able to sell strong beer, wine and spirits – no food items. This is a lose-lose situation. For consumers, it adds unnecessary time, effort, and money. For retailers, these regulations reduce profit potential. Current laws that prohibit what grocery stores and convenience stores can sell place a huge burden on Kansas retailers, especially when faced with escalating rent, and energy costs for lights and refrigeration. In effect, the state of Kansas is regulating businesses into oblivion.

Allowing grocery stores to sell full-strength beer, wine and spirits, and allowing liquor stores to sell grocery items will result in increased competition, benefiting both retailers and consumers in the form of increased economic activity and lower prices. Senate Bill 54 would do just that. Allowing retailers to sell additional items, such as beer, wine and spirits, would add an entirely new department to retailers; growing their product availability, increasing the need to hire new employees, and incentivizing customers to shop locally rather than drive to larger cities or bordering states where they can purchase products in one stop. SB 54 would provide sustainable economic growth for years to come.

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Last month, President Barack Obama signed a highly publicized Executive Order demanding a government-wide review of existing laws to remove regulations that stifle job creation and hamper America’s economy. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is considering a new alcohol labeling requirement that would devastate America’s small brewers, hampering their ability to grow and hire new employees—and even to continue operating.

Big producers of alcoholic beverages are supporting a proposal before the federal Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) that would require manufacturers of alcoholic beverages to list the nutritional content of their products, such as calories, alcohol content, and carbohydrates.

Supporters of the proposal claim that it will help provide consumers with more information to make better choices, but the result will be an increase in production costs could force some brewers of craft beers to close their doors while depriving others of the funds they need to grow their business—and hire more workers. This will mean fewer varieties of beer, more expensive products, and fewer jobs throughout the entire nation, as every state is home to small breweries.

Larger breweries will have little problem absorbing the cost of the new rule. In addition to the economies of scale they enjoy from large-scale production, major brewers only produce a few limited beer lines. Having fewer products limits the cost of providing content analysis and labeling.

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Yes, it’s true my home state of Massachusetts is the native habitat of that frigthening political specter, the moonbat.

But not everyone in the Bay State is lefty loon. Some are downright proud to be American, and enthusiastically support our veterans. Consider the story of Kimberly Rogers and Paige Haley, two friends from the town of Pepperell who just introduced 50 Back lager — half the profits are given to veterans charities.

Among the organizations they support are the USO and Homes for Our Troops, a Massachusetts charity that builds handicapped accessible homes around the country for wounded veterans.

We wrote about them today in The Boston Herald. Right now the beer is available only in Massachusetts. But I thought the nationwide Big Government community would like to hear their story. If the beer catches on, as I imagine it will, then the sky’s the limit.

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Today, in 1933, the prohibition on 3.2% ABV beer was repealed. It was a small step for freedom.