Let's face it. People who buy artificial Christmas trees are just plain un-American.
At least that's what's implied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest plan to promote real Christmas trees this holiday season.
The National Christmas Tree Association lobbied the USDA to levy a 15-cent fee per Christmas tree to create a campaign to promote ... Christmas trees.
To rephrase, the government is taxing the Christmas tree industry to promote the Christmas tree industry.
Let that sink in for a second.
The fee will go to a proposed Christmas Tree Promotion Board, which will create advertising campaigns to encourage consumers to purchase real Christmas trees.
The increase in sales of artificial trees has sparked this move by the "fresh" tree industry.
The Chicago Tribune reported that according to the USDA, real tree "sales declined from 37 million in 1991 to 31 million in 2007," while artificial tree sales "nearly doubled."
But not all Christmas tree growers are happy about the plan. About 565 comments were submitted to the USDA about the plan and 147 of those comments were not pleased with the decision.
However, growers opposed to the plan still have to pay the 15-cent fee, saying that the plan represents the wishes of large wholesale growers.
In response to criticisms, White House spokesman Matt Lehrich told ABC news that the new fee was not a tax but "an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself to fund a promotional campaign."
Yet, with opposition among some industry growers, this argument falls flat. Despite the fact that "an industry group" favors the plan, of course it is still a tax.
The Christmas tree industry should be responsible for promoting its own industry by paying its own advertising campaign.
While large wholesale growers will be able to absorb the cost of this fee without passing it to consumers, smaller growers will more than likely embed the cost in their price.
But of more importance in this entire controversy is the fact that the government is actively supporting the "real" Christmas tree industry instead of the artificial market.
Large wholesale tree growers are using the government to tax the entire "real" tree industry to create an ad campaign that they would otherwise have to pay for out of pocket.
While the issue seems insignificant, this story represents another blatant example of the government choosing favorites, while the little guy suffers.
There is no "national" Christmas tree industry. There are only individual growers with individual companies who should all have to compete by their own effort.
