US Dept of Agriculture's $0.15 Fee on Fresh Cut Trees

To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.

Also, according to the article, the tree growers are all for it.

Latest word is that Obama is suspending implementation of this fee. Interesting as the fee was requested by the Grower's assoc.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

$0.15 cents... That's not bad, but the growers will probably turn that into $5-$10

Why would the Federal Government spend a minute of any employee's time on working on this project?

Were they afraid people would start importing Xmas trees from China if we didn't improve their image?

According to the National Christmas Tree Association

RETAIL MARKET VALUE - 2010

Real Trees $36.12 average cost
27.0 million trees sold
$976 million total market

fake trees $64.61
8.2 million sold
$530 million total market

So, 27,000,000 x $0.15 = $4,050,000.00 to fund the program.

They should put a 15 cent tax on Xmas trees to promote Planned Parenthood. You know, for the children.

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words