My Merry Christmas

9 November 2011
Special to My Merry Christmas.com
By Jeff Westover


The media widely reported today of the seemingly incomprehensible idea of a tax of fifteen cents per tree for consumers purchasing a real Christmas tree. Rarely has an issue in the news about Christmas brought such a vociferous response.

Unfortunately, inaccuracies in media reporting and news outlets already spinning the story to support a particular political agenda has skewed what the real situation is. This is our attempt to sort it out. Here are the facts:

--The real Christmas tree industry lobbied for the tax. Sales of real Christmas trees have seen a steady decline for the past 20 years. Conversely, sales of artificial trees have steadily grown.

-- The purpose of the self-imposed tax on Christmas trees is to fund a government program supporting the marketing of real Christmas trees. The real Christmas tree growers of America lobbied to have support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture similar to other industries (Dairy, Meats, etc) wherein the government markets Christmas tree purchases as helpful to the environment and to the U.S. economy.

That's it in a nutshell.

However, as pointed out on our sister site, DefendChristmas.com, there are several points of potential political fallout on this issue.

Already this issue has caused the Obama Administration to pull back on the program, as reported by several media outlets this afternoon.

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