Quote:
Originally Posted by zimmy
He is the subject of the title of the thread 
The "Obama...stole Christmas" article is misleading and unfortunately that kind of bs that feeds hatred of the president. It implies he chose to tax Christmas. Some here have even stated that it is an attack on Christianity and implied the attack was by Obama.
The industry requested it, which is legal under current law established long ago.
All other discussion is an aside. |
Obama is part of the title of the thread. The thread starts wilth an article about the Christmas tree tax and the Agriculture Dept. involvement. I pointed out later that the "tax" was about the war between artificial and natural trees, WHICH IT IS, so that should help your exoneration of Obama and you should appreciate since that seems to be what's important to you in this thread. But discussing what the tax is about, Ag Dept. involvement, Constitutional principles, are not off topic or asides, they are germane to the topic of the so-called tax. That the industry requested help from the Ag. Dept. is "legal" under current law doesn't mean the law is Constitutional in the strict sense. Nor does it mean the request fits, entirely, the process. The process of agricultural commodity societies requesting help to promote their product should not do so when it is at the detriment of another, especially a competing, product. This was implied in the caveat in the beef promotion act--"By law, checkoff funds cannot be used to promote particular breeds nor can they be used to influence government policy or action, including lobbying." Nor does the Constitution provide Congress the ability to leglislate in favor of one legal business over another. The Ag. Dept. involvement with other commodity promotions was not about competition between commodities, but aid strictly to a specific one NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF ANOTHER, however Constitutional or not. This Christmas tree tax is specifically about the competition between natural and artificial trees and the government is not Constitutionally authorized to favor or help one over the other.