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Right-wing media figures are accusing the Obama administration of seeking to impose a tax on Christmas trees; but the Christmas tree industry has been working since 2008 -- before President Obama was elected -- to partner with the Department of Agriculture and establish a marketing campaign funded by tree growers in order to promote the sale of fresh Christmas trees.
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Far from a tax initiated by the Obama administration, the proposal to create an assessment on tree growers to fund a research and promotion program through the USDA was begun by the industry during the Bush administration.
In February 2008, faced with declining sales, members of the National Christmas Tree Association created a task force to consider the merits of a checkoff program, which would allow the USDA to collect a fee from growers in order to fund research into marketing Christmas trees.
The Christmas Tree Promotion Board would be funded by a new 15 cent per tree tax on large-scale producers of Christmas trees. A group of Christmas tree producers and importers worried about the skyrocketing use of artificial trees proposed the new board.
Under the proposal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the board would seek to revitalize the marketing and image of fresh-cut Christmas trees, which have been overwhelmed in recent years by sales of artificial trees. The Christmas Tree Checkoff Task Force, the group of producers and importers who suggested the board, said the market share of artificial trees increased 655 percent from 1965 to 2008.
According to the agency, the new board is designed to be an "industry-funded promotion, research and information program for fresh-cut Christmas trees." Board members would be nominated from within the industry.
Past marketing efforts have resulted in an uptick in fresh tree sales, but such "voluntary marketing program[s] suffer from a lack of funding," according to the agency.
"Producers and importers that domestically produce or import less than 500 Christmas trees annually would be exempt from the assessment," according to the proposal, which is listed in the Nov. 8 Federal Register. Small-scale producers, along with organic producers, would have to submit an exception request to the board.
The proposed tax is authorized under the 1996 Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act that authorizes the agency "to establish agricultural commodity research and promotion orders."
Sadly, we have tyranny running amok in our government, the movement toward bigger more intrusive government will continue until we finally stand up and say enough.
And I'm not talking about camping out in a park, crapping in buckets, and holding signs. I mean voting in people of substance, people of strength, and people with enough faith in the American's ability to govern themselves, not needing the big greedy hand of a nanny state to wipe our butts for us, clothe us, feed us, or even employ us.
We don't need the government to tax Christmas tree sales to "improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees", our government needs to get out of the way and let us market our own trees and our tree farmers will probably do a better job at it than the government ever could.
Christmas is named after the birth of Jesus Christ. The "mas" part of Christmas comes from the Roman Catholic term "mass." Christmas was originally a mass for Christ, to celebrate His birth. Read more: wiki.answers.com...
White House spokesman Matt Lehrich told ABC News that despite some media coverage, “I can tell you unequivocally that the Obama Administration is not taxing Christmas trees. What’s being talked about here is an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself to fund a promotional campaign, similar to how the dairy producers have created the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign.”