Joe Walsh Saves Christmas

Barack Obama already ruined Christmas 2008 for the Republican Party. Now, Rep. Joe Walsh, Tea Party-Ill., is now trying to prevent the president from ruining Christmases present and future.

Walsh introduced the “Save Christmas Act” this week to prevent the Obama Adminstration from imposing a proposed 15-cent tax on Christmas trees to fund a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The board would take out ads urging families to buy real live trees, instead of plastic imitations.

“The sheer audacity of a tax on Christmas trees is ridiculous,” Walsh fulminated in a press release. “Are we going to start taxing Halloween candy and pumpkins or turkey and apple pie? Are we going to tax the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny too? Are we going to tax hotdogs and hamburgers and American flags for the Fourth of July? Christmas has traditionally been a holiday when American families from across the country get together and just celebrate and give. And this year, when Americans are hurting and struggling to make ends meet, Christmas is more important than ever. This is exactly why American families are struggling. President Obama continues to implement unnecessary taxes to create and fund more unnecessary do-nothing government programs. If this isn’t big government, what is?”

As with most of Walsh’s statements, this one is short on facts and long on hyperbole. The Christmas Tree Promotion Board was not conceived by the Obama Administration, it was conceived by growers, who requested the tax to reverse the declining sales of pines and spruces. The Department of Agriculture approved the tax this week, comparing it the dairy industry’s “Got Milk” campaign. But when it appeared in the Federal Register, so many conservatives complained so vociferously that the administration decided to “delay implementation and revisit this action,” in the words of a spokesman.

An official from the conservative Heritage Foundation sensibly pointed out that the government should leave the free market alone to let people decide whether to buy real or fake trees. He didn’t need to bring the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy or the Heat Miser into this debate.

If we taxed Walsh 15 cents every time he says something outrageous, his family could have the $117,000 he owes them in time for Christmas.

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