Society

Sign of the Times: Santa Fired Due To Budget Cuts While Administration Moves To Tax Christmas Trees

Suffolk County, New York has taken the budget cuts to a new low: firing Santa David McKell, 83, to save $660. Fortunately, the Obama Administration is continuing our spending billions in Iraq and Afghanistan so McKell could still look for a job from Halliburton, though Santa positions tend to be limited.


McKell is a World War II veteran and former homicide police detective who has been the local Santa on Long Island for more than nine years.

[Update: Steven Colbert appears to have stepped in to cover the costs. However, I would prefer freeing up those billions being sent in our continuing wars].

To complete the seasonal onslaught, President Barack Obama has announced a new Christmas tree tax. At first I thought that it was a tax designed to cover the environmental costs of such harvesting. I love fresh trees at Christmas but would be happy to pay extra to deal with the environmental costs. However, this new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees will go to improving the image and marketing of Christmas trees. The government will create a new “Christmas Tree Promotion Board.” The Administration explains that he 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)).

It is of course remarkably dumb in an election year during the holiday season to announce such a tax but this White House appears the most politically tone-deaf Administration in decades. To make it even more incomprehensible, they announce the tax, take widespread criticism, and then the next day they announce that they will delay (though not cancel) the tax. In the end, however, I am most interested in whether we really need a new Board or to subsidize an industry’s image building at a time of economic distress. It is not the 15 cents per tree. I thought we were trying to reduce government. The Administration is slashing scientific and educational programs, but we really need a Christmas Tree Promotion Board?

Source: BDtonline as first seen on Reddit.

50 thoughts on “Sign of the Times: Santa Fired Due To Budget Cuts While Administration Moves To Tax Christmas Trees”

  1. Jonathan,
    I posted a comment to your 06/06/2011 report last week, and it is still awaiting moderation. I just wanted to alert you to check it out. There had been several videos of the news casts of the incident on youtube, but somebody has recently been getting them removed.

  2. Jesus H Christ … a tax on Christmas trees so that the Christmas Tree Industry can run an ad campaign? This is the most ridiculous thing I expect to learn today.

    Here’s a little history:

    According to the History Channel special on Christmas, the holiday was seen as such an English tradition that after the American Revolution it fell into some disfavor in the United States. Congress even held sessions on Christmas Day.

    The first three states to make Christmas a legal holiday were in the South: Alabama in 1836, Louisiana and Arkansas in 1838. (Many Northerners saw sin in the celebration of Christmas; to these people the celebration of Thanksgiving was more appropriate. But in the South, Christmas was an important part of the social season.)

    President Abraham Lincoln asked Harper’s Magazine’s illustrator Thomas Nast to create a drawing of Santa with some Union soldiers. This image of Santa supporting the enemy had a demoralizing influence on the Confederate army — an early example of psychological warfare.

    Christmas is the only Congressionally-recognized religious holiday and we owe that bit of genius to President Grant who signed the bill into law on June 28, 1870.

    Now a tax to pay for an ad campaign for live Christmas Trees. Corporate Welfare at its finest.

    Hey, if you’re dumb enough to pay it don’t bitch when 4 years down the road it becomes 15 cents a foot.

  5. Swarthmore Mom,

    Following up on your Media Matters story:

    Artificial War On Christmas Campaign Launches Fake Obama “Christmas Tree Tax”
    November 09, 2011 12:38 am ET by Jeremy Holden
    http://mediamatters.org/blog/201111090001?frontpage

    Excerpt:
    Right-wing media figures are accusing the Obama administration of seeking to impose a tax on Christmas trees; but the Christmas tree industry has been working since 2008 — before President Obama was elected — to partner with the Department of Agriculture and establish a marketing campaign funded by tree growers in order to promote the sale of fresh Christmas trees.

    *****

    Thanks for that link.

  6. There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity — like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule — that’s what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel — it’s vulgar. – Molly Ivins

  8. Speaking of coming off, how do you think this is coming off as.

    David Gregory: No “Grand Wizard” In GOP To Force Cain Out

  10. Right wing media launches fake Obama Christmas tree tax, according to media matters. They want to show Obama is anti-Christmas and anti-christian.

    Thats how it’s coming off but really it’s just another slap in the face of the constitution from someone who is suppose to be a constitutional attorney.

  12. I do believe they are looking for some blowback by the separation of church and state loyalists….and I sure as hell hope they show up!
    cause that smells all kinds of Trojan Horsey to me…

  14. As someone who has worked as a Budget Director in a municipal agency it boggles my mind how saving $660 by firing a p/t Santa Claus even got put on the table. The amount represents 1 weeks pay for a county worker. Budget cutting never gets to that microcosmic level. What were they thinking? How could this be seen as a positive move?

  16. 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).

  17. Professor how does this effect separation of church and state the governments position is it’s suppose to promote Christmas.

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