The Hill News

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) on Wednesday blasted the Obama administration for implementing a new tax on Christmas trees, calling the proposal a “crony-capitalist subsidy scam.”

The Agricultural Marketing Service, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture, on Tuesday established a national Christmas Tree Promotion Board that requires producers and importers of fresh cut Christmas trees selling more than 500 trees per year to pay an assessment of fifteen cents per tree as part of an initiative to improve the marketing of fresh Christmas trees.

“[D]oes anyone in America â€" anyone? â€" believe that Christmas trees have a bad image that needs taxpayer-subsidized improvement?” DeMint asked in a post on his official blog. “All I want for Christmas is a free market.”

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