Holiday Political Class Insanity - Christmas Tree Tax Enacted

Just when you think you have seen it all from a political class insanity perspective, our politicians drop another "you cannot make this stuff up" situation on us. According to recent news reports from the Chicago Tribune and other news sources, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has established a "Christmas Tree Tax" in time for this holiday season.


According to an article in the November 9, 2011 issue of the Chicago Tribune:

• The USDA will now require that a $.15 tax be paid on every imported and domestically produced fresh  Christmas tree, i.e. trees that were once alive.
• The collected tax will be directed to  "generic ads and other promotions, as well as research. The promotions, according to the USDA, will present 'a favorable image of Christmas trees to the general public,' with the intent of improving the public "perception" of Christmas trees and, hence, their sales."
• The news reports estimate that $2 million will be raised a year from the tax.
• The effort will be directed by a twelve member board which will oversee the program.
• After three years, the growers and importers will decide whether or not to continue the tax.
• Acting USDA Marketing Administrator David Shipman has publicly stated the 15-cent mandatory Christmas tree fee “is not a tax nor does it yield revenue for the Federal government”
• This is not a voluntary program, all domestic producers of Christmas trees and importers of once live Christmas trees are required by law to participate.
• Another quote from Mr. Shipman explained that the program is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States.”

So many, many things wrong with this insanity

1. The most obvious question to ask, does the image of the Christmas tree need to be enhanced? What criteria was used to determine that enhancement was needed?
2. Is this the best way, the most cost effective way to enhance the Christmas tree's image?
3. Why is the Federal government involved, aren't there Christmas tree trade associations that are responsible for the image of the Christmas tree?
4. Given there is a twelve member board that oversees this program with the board likely being supported by staff people, how much of the $2 million will be left over to pay for any promotions once the board, their staff, and the associated expenses are paid out of the $2 million? Or are the board's expenses to come out of taxpayer funded expenses?
5. As with most corporate taxes, the cost will eventually be passed along to the consumer of Christmas trees. Also passed along will be the administrative cost of tracking and paying the tax and the paperwork and forms that go with it. While the amount is unlikely to be a lot, why have additional expenses at all?
6. Isn't this a blatant government slap against the parts of our economy that sell fake Christmas trees? Shouldn't retailers and manufacturers of fake Christmas trees also get government support in order to be treated just as fairly?
7. Can we expect the government to get involved in supporting the Hanukkah Bush industry? Does that industry need its image enhanced?
8. Given this industry is mostly a cash business, what is the effort and expense going to be to track this hard-to-track cash to make sure that a $.15 tax is levied on each separate tree? Impossible task.
9. The industry is also populated by a large number of landowners who allow people to cut down Christmas trees on  their property, usually paying cash for the right to do so. How is that revenue gong to be tracked and taxed?
10. Abe Lincoln quote: If you called a tail a leg, how many legs would a dog have? Answer: Four, calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg. Mr. Shipman, this is a tax no matter what you call it. It is a mandatory government fee which is most people's definition of a tax.
11. Some Christmas tree sellers do not want to be in the program, one of whom was quoted in the Tribune article. They would not have to participate if this was an industry operated program. However, these Christmas tree sellers are now forced against their will to contribute to the program they do not want to or be in violation of Federal law.
12. After three years, how will success be determined and who decides what success is? Like most government programs, that criteria has apparently not been established ahead of time. I am sure the 12 member board will have a very low threshold definition of success in order to perpetuate this cushy job.

And the biggest problem of all, does the USDA have nothing better to do than to put together programs that should be put together by the private sector? Are there USDA staffers sitting around with so little to do that they invent a program to tax Christmas trees?

Given the country's $15 TRILLION national debt, I would suggest that the first place to cut government spending might be this new Christmas tax program. This is a program that has no criteria for success, forces America business people to participate in a mandatory government program that they may not approve of, establishes an overwhelming bureaucracy to administer the program, introduces unnecessary expenses into a struggling economy, and will have little chance of reaching their goal of $2 million a year, given the cash dominance of the industry, making tax collection next to impossible.

The people associated with the program at the USDA should be laid off and their taxpayer funded salaries returned to the taxpayers, this is a totally unnecessary government expense. If the USDA does not want to fire these people, maybe they could be used to clean up the waste and fraud that permeate other USDA programs.

For example, Reason magazine reported in their December, 2007 issue that hundreds of people living in Manhattan receive checks from the Federal government every year from the government's farm subsidy programs. These checks total over $4 million every year.

Given that very few, if any, of these Manhattanites are doing farming in midtown Manhattan, why not put some of these USDA Christmas tree tax people on a project worth something important, saving the American taxpayer money by reducing this type of rampant fraud. By the way, two of those living in Manhattan are Mark and David Rockefeller, hardly two struggling farmers.

Political class insanity. Just when you think you have seen it all from a waste and bad priorities perspective, our politicians waste more and prioritize worse than ever imagined. Cannot wait to see what they do from an Easter egg perspective.


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