It's a strange scenario unfolding. While the Christmas Tree Promotion Board is now on hold--delayed November 9 after the Obama Administration came under fire for a tax on freshly-cut live trees, the battle continues: Rhode Island's Governor Lincoln Chafee calls a a donated spruce for a December 6 lighting a "Holiday Tree". The farmer wants that tree back. But he appears to be settling by donating another tree--to a political figure who will call it a "Christmas Tree".
There's been rumor for two years that the White House plans to change its terminology permanently by permanently naming Christmas trees "Holiday Trees". If that's the case, it'd be an awfully stupid move. The Administration is currently under fire for a new board it wants to create -- which is intended t to specifically preserve the image of the Christmas tree and expand its existing market (whatever that's supposed to mean). The White House website does name the 2011 decorations "Christmas trees".
At a charge of fifteen cents per fresh Christmas tree headed for every importer or producer of trees, the new tax that was already supposed to be in effect for this holiday season is supposedly meant to ensure America doesn't lose sight of those precious Christmas trees. It's not called the "Holiday Tree Promotion Board" -- it's the bizarre story of the "Christmas Tree Promotion Board" that would bring in US $2 million or more in estimated funds.
State Representative Doreen Costa claims Chafee's recent reference and intention -- to call what the nation knows as Christmas trees as holiday trees -- is a move against legislature. She says Chafee's new reference as a show of refusing to honor what’s passed in the House of Representatives. But Chafee may have an out with that one: Legislators ripped into the Obama Administration over what's basically viewed as a tax -- and some are calling what's dubbed the "Christmas tree tax" as a specific tax on Christians. It's also been called unconstitutional. To avoid fanning the flames it seems, that tax or fee's been put on hold by the government. For now.
It was less than a month ago, in a November 8 announcement, that the Obama Administration cited the decade and one-half old "Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act of 1996" as reason for its right to impose the new tax it wants the nation to call a "fee". And that tax, aka fee, is slated to directly hit those like Big John Leyden’s Christmas Tree Farm -- and, most likely, consumers as the fee gets passed down the line in the Christmas Tree Promotion Board that needs to promote the tree's image.
So, for now, Americans can rest assured the President doesn't plan to alter the name. In fact the government probably has no plan to change that holiday decor name. The Obama Administration wants that Board.