But What About Chanuka Bushes?

Chanukah Bush

Obama Couldn’t Wait: His New Christmas Tree Tax

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).

Information on Chanukah Bushes here.  I doubt we'll have a fresh Christmas tree this year (we have not for several years now), so it's unlikely I'll be marching in the streets about this inequality.

Meanwhile, up in the Peoples Republic of Wisconsin, advocates for freedom from religion have chastised  Gov. Scott Walker for actually using the term "Christmas Tree" .