President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.“Enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry”? I confess, I was completely unaware that Christmas tree salesmen had fallen in our esteem to the level of, say, itinerant driveway-pavers or congressmen. I wonder if the tax is high enough?
In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend [sic] existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).
Update: Implementation of this tax has now been delayed.
3 comments:
Obama didn't want his "Joker Hope" poster to be replaced with the Grinch. But I wish somebody would photoshop one anyway.
How about Scrooge, Rebecca? That's a better match, methinks.
The saddest thing about this is that the tax and commission were not initiated by the Dept. of Agriculture, but were requested by a coalition of big C'mas tree growers. Big Tree = crony capitalism.
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