A holiday tradition meets federal policy

The Cato Institute’s Adam Michel offered some timely holiday reading this week, turning his attention to the 15-cent fee tucked into the cost of every live Christmas tree sold in the United States. The USDA calls it a “checkoff program,” the same label used for beef, pork, and other commodity promotions.

That name creates confusion: Nebraskans are used to genuine tax “checkoffs” on state income forms where taxpayers voluntarily support causes. This is something else entirely. No one checks a box. The fee is mandatory and paid by growers, who then pass it on to consumers as part of the tree’s price. And despite the stir it has created, it works out to fifteen cents on a $70 to $100 tree—not 15 percent, not even a noticeable dent.

The history is a bit more colorful. In 2011, the Obama administration sought to establish the Christmas Tree Checkoff under existing USDA authority. The blowback was swift, bipartisan, and relentless. Headlines mocked a “Christmas tree tax,” and the White House swiftly dropped the idea. Three years later, however, Congress quietly authorized it in the 2014 farm bill. The result is today’s $2 to $3 million annual program supporting generic promotions, similar to those for other national commodities such as milk, eggs, and beef.

Those ads do not come from Congress. Checkoff boards operate under federal authority yet remain largely controlled by industry insiders. The boards collect the assessments, direct the research and design the promotional messages. As Michel notes, that structure has produced a billion dollars in mandatory assessments across 22 commodities—from mangos and blueberries to pork, cotton, and now Christmas trees.

With that money has come controversy. The American Egg Board once attempted to spend mandatory checkoff funds to fight a California ballot measure on animal confinement and later to undermine a vegan mayonnaise competitor. Dairy’s attacks on plant-based milk alternatives and cotton’s push against synthetics raise similar concerns. If participation is mandatory, should producers be forced to subsidize messages they disagree with?

Cato argues that Congress should repeal the program entirely. At minimum, they suggest a producer opt-out and greater transparency, proposals reflected in the bipartisan Opportunities for Fairness in Farming Act. Voluntary collective marketing would allow the industry to fund promotions it wants without requiring compelled support from dissenting growers.

Yet for Nebraskans buying a real tree, this debate remains mostly invisible. The assessment is not a line item on the receipt any more than the cost of diesel or fertilizer. It’s one more business expense folded into a price already influenced by transportation, labor, and supply.

Our state’s growers are a modest but proud part of a niche industry. Nebraska Extension counts more than 20 Christmas tree farms in central and eastern counties, producing Scotch and Austrian pine, spruce, and fir. One recent Nebraska grower told Omaha media that demand for real trees has surged. Still, artificial trees dominate nationwide, with surveys showing roughly 80 percent of households opting for a faux tree they can box up and reuse.

Whether one prefers the scent of a fresh-cut fir or the convenience of a pre-lit artificial, the issue at hand is not the Christmas tree itself—it is whether government should compel an industry to pay for its own speech. A holiday tradition may not need a federal voice to defend it. Sometimes the market can speak for itself.