It was just announced today that President Obama has just approved a $0.15 tax to be added to the price of all real Christmas Tree's bought by American's starting this holiday season.
First and foremost, we don't need any new taxes in today's sluggish economy, much less for the reason this tax was established.
This tax was created for the sole purpose of promoting Christmas Tree sales. Give me a break!! .... Really! I really don't think Christmas tree sales need to be promoted ... do you?? The money generated from this tax will be used for a general fund to be used by Christmas tree companies to perform marketing and promotions for their products. Sounds like another subsidy to me. I just wish that if they are handing out the subsidies that they could slide a few dollars my way. Not really ..... we'd prefer to do it ourselves without dependence on the government.
How ironic ....... in the same day that the President approved this new tax to help promote this industry, he seriously struck a blow to our industry. He signed an executive order to cut by 20% all Promotional Products from being purchased by the federal government in a cost reduction measure.
Press release:
According to the press release issued early this morning, federal agencies would be expected to cut spending by 20 percent in five areas: travel, technology, vehicles, printing and promotional products, which the release labeled as "swag" and "unnecessary promotional items."
"The Executive Order directs agencies to stop wasting taxpayer money on non-essential items used for promotional purposes, such as clothing, mugs, and non-work related gadgets," the White House said in the statement. "For instance, several months ago the Department of the Treasury issued a directive to all of its bureaus to avoid purchasing any goods that could be considered frivolous or unnecessary, and to ensure that all purchases have a clear nexus with the Department's mission and operations."
Part of the president's "Campaign to Cut Waste," the executive order would target writing instruments, drinkware, notebooks, custom apparel and other office accessories used by federal agencies. In addition, the statement seeks to dramatically reduce government printing spending by putting more documents exclusively online.
http://magazine.promomarketing.com/article/obama-cut-federal-spending-promotional-products/1#utm_source=headlines-breaking-news&utm_medium=enewsletter_continue_story1&utm_campaign=2011-11-09
Now don't get me wrong, I don't have any issues with reducing government spending, but the irony is in how he increased a tax to promote one industry and cut another one. I'd like to be the lobbyist that helped get that tax through. Let's see: 25 million trees sold for Christmas at $0.15 tax per tree. That would be about 3.75 Million in taxes and let's say the lobbyist firm got 1% for pushing it through, that would be $3700.00. Not a lot for annoying the taxpayer and you can figure the Promotional Products industry would loose alot more than that.
Just doesn't make sense these days?? Just my thoughts :)
