Republicans falsely blame Christmas tree shortage on Biden

Climate change and longstanding economic issues are making it harder to find a Christmas tree this year. Republicans would rather blame President Joe Biden than acknowledge that reality.

“Biden’s economy making it harder to find and buy a Christmas tree,” the Republican National Committee tweeted on Monday. Rep. Mike Carey (R-OH) quickly retweeted the claim.

Several other Republican lawmakers have in recent weeks blamed Biden for the lack of available holiday trees this season and the resulting higher prices.

“Who’s excited to pay 30% more this year for Christmas trees? I’m not. Thanks, Joe,” complained North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn.

“Americans will have to fork over a lot more cash for their Christmas tree this year—if they can find one,” noted Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). “Inflation from President Biden & the Democrats’ reckless spending isn’t helping to make the season bright.”

But the Fox News report cited in the Republican Party’s tweet makes it clear that Biden is not to blame.

Even the first line of that story notes that trees have been in short supply for a while now: “The Christmas tree shortage has been going on for five or six years but, this year has been by far the worst, a Christmas tree retailer told Fox News.”

Fox talked with Matthew Gallery, a Virginia-based holiday tree seller, who said, “One of the biggest stories I’ve heard the last few years was that this shortage originally stemmed from the financial crisis [of 2008], where there were four or five years where a lot of farmers either decided to retire or just didn’t plant trees because of the uncertainty, and it takes eight-nine years or so for, say, an eight-foot tree to grow.” He also pointed to the consolidation of farms whose primary customers are now Lowe’s and Home Depot, “which squeezes out the little guy,” and to climate change and infestations, all of which, he said, created a “perfect storm.”

Other news coverage has also reported on the role of climate change in the tree shortage.

Vince Cardinale, a Christmas tree vendor based in California, told television station KSBW in Salinas earlier this month that troubles were “exacerbated by the extreme temperatures during the heat wave in June in 117-degree plus heat. A lot of these trees got sunburned which means they were like red. So they were unable to harvest them.”

“Climate change is impacting all agriculture and in different ways,” Frans Kok, owner of a Christmas tree farm in Virginia, told CNBC in November, pointing to an increase in climate-related tree fungal infections. “And so, the price of trees is clearly going up and that’s in part because we are low on them.”

More than 130 Republicans in Congress have publicly disputed climate science.

And every single GOP representative and senator opposes the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better bill, which would invest hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy and climate change infrastructure.

Notably, several Republicans have attacked the fact that the plan includes $2.5 billion to plant more trees in places that don’t have any, especially urban communities. They have mocked this push for tree equity as “reckless spending.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.