When Santa makes his rounds on Dec. 25, I hope he has a large supply of coal. He'll need it for all the names of those in the U.S. Department of Agriculture on his "naughty" list who deserve nothing more in their stockings this year.
The Agriculture Department has officially imposed a 15 cent tax on all live Christmas trees.
If they're going to do something so heinous, why don't they just go ahead and levy taxes on Christmas presents, mistletoe, and a singing fee on every Christmas carol sung or played during the holidays? (Okay, I'll admit that the music industry has already figured out how to do the last one).
Who exactly is the head of the Agriculture Department these days, Ebenezer Scrooge?
Like most bad government ideas, this one started as an okay idea.
The Christmas tree growers in the U.S. have seen a dramatic downturn in the number of trees they sell each year.
It's not a diabolical scheme devised by Jack Frost or Heat Miser or the Abominable Snowman. It's just another sad reality of a nation that is addicted to Chinese goods as severely as it joneses for imported oil. The truth is that Americans today buy artificial trees.
In an effort to improve their live tree sales and expand their marketing efforts, the tree growers have asked for help from the government (always a bad idea...just ask the Katrina victims).
The government decided to do what the government ALWAYS does, which is establish another committee. But in these austere times, they had to find a way to pay for the committee and their multitudinous assistants, vice-assistants, deputy associate assistants, and all the reams of paper any self-respecting bureaucracy requires. So to fund the new committee, the Agriculture Department is charging 15 cents per tree to all of the tree growers, who of course will pass that 30 cent tax down to tree buyers. (If you don't understand that last sentence, then you obviously flunked business math at Wharton.)
There are so many despicable facets to this scenario that I hardly know where to begin.
First, once again our government is sticking its nose into a business problem, and offering their equivalent of more corporate welfare. At a time when so many people want to scream "socialism" at the drop of a hat, it continues to be hilarious when business owners see no problem whatsoever in receiving government assistance. If the tree growers really needed another committee so badly, why didn't they form it themselves?
Second, this is an abject lesson in governance that should enrage and terrify every American.
When you go down the LONG list of directors, secretaries, managers, and other high-level toadies in the Agriculture Department, you'll find something interesting: not a single one of them was elected to their position. The American people didn't vote for them or approve their appointment.
However, despite the fact that they aren't elected, the Agriculture Department somehow has the power and authority to levy taxes.
Most of us operate daily under the erroneous assumption that only Congress can impose new taxes. In fact, if I remember correctly, that's exactly how we ended up with a Congress, after colonists decided they'd had enough of taxes being levied by appointed flunkies like King George (who, if you believe the monarchy, was appointed by God).
The truth is that just about any old department or committee in the federal government can tack on some fees, tariffs, or taxes any time they want, without Congressional approval or action.
It only took a little over 200 years, but we've succeeded in bringing the concept of "taxation without representation" full circle. It is now a normal and accepted practice in the United States.
Worst of all, I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it, short of dressing up in war paint and heading down to your nearest Kiwanis tree stand to throw large collections of Douglas firs overboard.
So, now that we're just about as powerless as the colonists in 1775, all we can do is hope that the Big Guy in Red will exact some collective vengeance against the bureaucratic evildoers by leaving mounds of coal in their stockings for finally finding a way to tax Christmas.
Never mind that every piece of coal placed in those stockings includes taxes imposed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. As we so often say on Christmas morning when opening the oversized, badly-knitted mittens from Aunt Esther (even though you're now 35 years old)...it's the thought that counts.
No comments:
Post a Comment