(Image Source: Beech Mountain Chamber of Commerce)

BY EMILY SPAIN

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The Obama administration planned on asking for an additional gift this holiday season - 15 extra cents per Christmas tree.
But after too many bah humbugs from critics, the USDA is going to delay implementing the charge.

This came after the Hertiage Foundation labeled the fee a “Christmas tree tax” - saying the new charge on growers would be passed on to consumers.  

But a writer for the LA Times notes the government uses a different verbiage for the 15-cent fee.

“For its part the government says that the fee isn’t a tax because the money collected...will be used to help the nation’s Christmas tree industry. The government’s done this before. Remember the 'Got Milk?' campaign. It’s like that.”

Apparently, Christmas tree sales are reportedly on the decline and all growers want for Christmas is some PR.
So, the Department of Agriculture created the fee to fund the new Christmas Tree Promotion Board, which has Fox News poking fun.

“The board is responsible for promoting the merits of real live trees as opposed to artificial ones.  Can you image you get the call from your government, ‘we want you to serve, we need you, you’re country needs you right now. We want you to be on the official Christmas tree board.’”

So will the government be a Grinch or will the new board help save real trees from losing to their artificial counter-parts?  Conservative David Addington of the Heritage Foundation thinks it’s a Scrooge move.

“The economy is barely growing and nine percent of the American people have no jobs.  Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do? And, by the way, the American Christmas tree has a great image that doesn’t need any help from the government.”

But will this charge actual help fill growers’ stockings this season?
According to the National Christmas Tree Association, tree sales have ebbed and flowed for years. TIME has the numbers.

“In 2010, 27 million real trees were sold, which is about the same as in 2004. Some years have stronger real tree sales than others, and the association points out that consumers overwhelmingly still prefer the real thing: ‘Real Trees outsell fake trees by an almost 3 to 1 margin.’”  

Transcript by Newsy.