(See update below)
President Obama has decided that Christmas trees have an image problem and a 15 percent cent tax on each tree sold needs to be collected so that some image polishing can take place. If Christmas trees have a bad name suddenly, maybe it’s all the liberals who insist that we have to call them “holiday trees” who are helping give them that bad name. Did
our esteemed president ever think of that?
It turns out, though, that this is just another instance of Obama’s version of capitalism: crony capitalism. This tax was instituted unilaterally by Obama’s Department of Agriculture comes at the wheedling insistence of the live-tree lobby, which is upset that so many people are turning to artificial trees.
At about $45 per tree that tax comes to $6.75 cents, enough for a decent present under the tree for Johnny or Jane, or at least some good stocking stuffers. The president of the workin’ man, it seems, doesn’t care about that, just so long as revenues into the federal maw continue at an accelerated pace.
Meanwhile, North Carolina’s Christmas tree industry, which is substantial, will take a hit. The live-tree lobby in Washington apparently doesn’t understand Economics 101, an axiom of which is, if you charge more for something you’ll sell less of it. The public doesn’t care if it’s the seller jumping the price or the government adding a tax. They just know the price went up.
So, when the end-of-season tallies look a little weak for the live-tree industry in the North Carolina mountains, we know who to thank: The Grinch Who Taxed Christmas.
UPDATE: My contention that Obama’s Christmas tree tax would cost a family several dollars is in error. I read the original story as a 15 percent tax, and it’s a 15-cent tax. So I’m doing an Emily Litella on this post. Still, the Grinch characterization stands, and also has been used by several national publications.
