In case you haven’t heard, the Obama administration has taken another shot at destroying Christmas. Lucky for all of us the good people on the right, like David Addington from the Heritage Foundation are here to protect us this sort of evil socialism.  According to our republican friends Obama has been trying to impose a 15 cent tax on all Christmas trees sold in the U.S.  The truth of the matter is quite different.

The reality of the matter is in stark contrast to what the right is trying to spin. The National Christmas Tree Association requested and agreed to the fee to promote the sale of real Christmas trees through a USDA promotional campaign much like the ones we already see from other campaigns like the “Got Milk?” promotion.

The NCTA issued this statement concerning the proposed fee:

This program was requested by the industry in 2009 and has gone through two industrywide
comment periods during which 565 comments were submitted from interested parties.
More than 70% of the growers posting comments, and nearly 90% of the state and multi-state associations that posted comments indicated that they were in favor of the program. A group of Christmas Tree farmers and retailers spent nearly three years studying the potential positives and negatives of a checkoff promotion and research program, including looking at other commodities that have similar programs.
The program is designed to benefit the industry and will be funded by the growers at a rate of 15 cents per tree sold. The program will be administered by an independent 12-member board of small business owners who grow and sell farm-grown Christmas trees and
they will be responsible for developing and approving promotional and research efforts to benefit the entire industry.

All one can think is that there must be a lot of people on the right who own stock in artificial trees.