Merry Christmas

  You've probably heard by now about the upcoming tax on the purchase of live Christmas trees. The Obama administration has knuckled under to yet another special interest group. Ace of Spades HQ has more:

  "It's a small tax, fifteen cents per tree.

So what? What possible justification is there for taxing Christmas trees?

Here's their justification:

The Obama administration has imposed a 15-cent tax on Christmas trees in order to pay for a new board tasked with promoting the Christmas tree industry.

We need to promote this industry?"

 ...and this:

"The board, proposed earlier this year, is the culmination of a years-long effort by the fresh Christmas tree industry to promote itself, according to the background provided in the Federal Register. The industry has faced increasing competition from producers of artificial trees, but efforts to collect voluntary contributions for a fresh-tree marketing campaign have repeatedly run out of funding. So the government stepped in to mandate a fee to support the promotion board."






UPDATE: Althouse has more, including this gem:


"What makes it very funny to me is that just yesterday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was lambasted for calling a Christmas tree a "Christmas tree." Linking to my post about that, The Anchoress wisecracks:

See, this is where Governor Walker made his mistake: If you want to call ‘em Christmas Trees, you have to tax them, first. Then you’re allowed."