As for being able to do without passing the cost onto the tax payer they were doing this with a tax on tree sales but that really isn't my point. My point is that if an industrie wants to promote itself it should do so without the federal government getting involved. For me it isn't so much if the program is a good idea or not it is that I believe government needs to focus on the things only it can do and let the other things be managed by private industry.

Here is what I see happening, they create the tax and raise a lot of money that needs to be spent. Now some bureaucrat with no skin in the game is going to be in charge of spending all that money. Is he or she going to spend it in a manner that will have the biggest gain for tree growers or is he going to be influenced other forces like friends who have ad agencies? Tree sells still improve so they expand the program to free range eggs and raise even more money and then they add gluten free bakeries and on and on and pretty soon some bureaucrat is given the spending power for hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars and the he or she is still not incentivized to get the absolute most out of the money spent and we are paying little extra taxes on everything. All we have acomplished is create another avenue for money to influence the government.


I do disagree with the idea that it is better to save a dollar or two here and there to go with a big box store. I personally value my local nursery and while I don't buy everything there I still buy most of my plants and chemicals there. I want to be able to talk to someone who actually knows what the hell they are talking about instead of some kid who is making it up.