Claire says it's been "put on hold," but Dear Ol' Uncle Sam, mindful of the hard times occasioned by this here dep-, um, reces-, ah, that is, "minor economic downturn" and the impact of facing another holiday season still (unless you're one of the luckier or better-connected employees of a .gov) makin' what you made in 2008 -- if you've got a job at all -- in that very tender light, the benevolent an' ever-loving fed.gov that feels your you pain, empathizes with your frustration and weeps the exact amount of tears specified somewhere in the CFR for each and every sparrow that falls, plop! on the corpse of a matchlessly quick-frozen Little Match Girl iced solidly to the stone under which a caryatid has been crushed flat, tryin' to pay off her home loan -- yeah, that fed.gov has done A Thing To Help Cheer Your Ungrateful Self Up:
They levied a tax on Christmas trees, the real grown-in-dirt organic variety.
A tax.
On Christmas trees.
Oh, frabjous day!
Outcry followed. Wow, who would have thunk? It would have been a pittance -- fifteen of those base-metal-core cents -- but it was a pittance too far. Or at least it is so far.
Looks like this year, Uncle Sam won't hit you up for pocket change. Next year? I dunno. Maybe they're hopin' by next year,Occupy Christmas will have us all sleepin' in mangers and eating hay. Or maybe sleeping on hay and eating managers, which seems to be more the general intent.
This tax is being proposed by some tree growers to increase xmas tree sales. Geez. Here is a link to a letter from a tree grower. Basically she says they wanted to form a voluntary tree growers assoc. but not enough growers were interested so they went to the gov. to force it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/ClaireWolfe/2011/11/10/christmas-trees-the-response/
Don't knock the base metal New Pence. I think if you (hypothetically) rub the copper off one side and stack them with brine soaked paper, you could get a fair battery.
ReplyDeleteSame thing soybean growers do to help their marketing, and some livestock growers.
ReplyDeleteAnon, Don
Soybeans, eggs, corn, milk, beef, pork, all with unneeded, government-run advertising campaigns, all supported by a "check-off" (tax) for which there is no tick box -- chipping in used to be voluntary, but that was decades ago. But hey, they left the name. And hey -- why do food prices keep going up?
ReplyDeleteLegalize hemp. I'm nae so fussed about the smoking of it but we're eventually gonna need a lot of rope.
FIFTEEN (15) effin' cents per tree they have saved me! Why, with all the trees I planned on buying this year for my home, that adds up to ......... (thinking)......... FIFTEEN (15)effin' cents!
ReplyDelete