Posted on 09/21/2004 8:54:57 AM PDT by presidio9
French President Jacques Chirac is the latest leader to call for the imposition of an international tax to help fight poverty.
Speaking at the United Nations in New York, Chirac praised a report prepared by a French working group that proposed a global tax be levied on arms sales and some financial transactions.
The report contains "technically realistic and economically rational solutions," said Chirac, who joined forces with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to push the anti-poverty agenda.
They will attempt to push forward the plan with the goal of cutting in half the number of people in poverty by 2015, as United Nations leaders pledged in 2000.
A declaration signed by 110 countries urged governments to consider the report.
Chirac's ideas were strongly attacked by the U.S. delegation.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said, "global taxes are inherently undemocratic. Implementation is impossible."
This is not the first time Chirac and other world leaders have called for a global tax.
Last year, some at the G8 summit meeting floated the idea of a global tax on arms sales, including – at Chirac's suggestion – a tax on gun purchases by individuals.
In a speech at the annual meeting of the "Group of Eight," or G8, da Silva pushed the arms-sales tax as a scheme whereby the world's wealthiest nations could fund efforts to eliminate world hunger.
The "Group of Eight" includes the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia.
Calling the Brazilian leader's proposal "forceful and convincing," Chirac was reluctant to back a levy on weapons manufacturers in France and elsewhere, but suggested a global tax on firearms purchases made by individuals, said the report.
International policymaking ain't really Chirac's thing. He should stick to doing what the French are good at.
Surrendering.
Time for Chirac to fade into a sorry footnote in the history books.
And the UN will oversee it all go in France's pocket.Just like the oil for France program.
Judging by their performance in Oil for Food, the French will find a way to collar some substantial fraction of the 'global tax' for themselves.
He'll have to personally take it from me. Chirac needs to shut him mouth and run that crappy little country of his.
No, you POS, it's time for you to use all the money you skimmed from the Oil For Food Program for the good of the Iraqi people.
Why are we all so suspicious of the poor French?
Chirac, go back to the CIA and get your intelligence recharged.
Chirac: Pound sand. There's no way one red cent of my tax dollars will go to anything you propose.
Great...just exclude the US for the next 100 years because we've been paying the freight for the world's poor for far too long...let the French worry about AIDs and the world's hungry.
Chirac: Time for trotting along to the dustbin of history. There he will be in good company with the pompous ass De Gaulle.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaahaha...
We will pay in bullets.
Money is a symbol of an underlying reality (competence, productivity, intelligence)
Savages who invent nothing, produce nothing, and have mean IQs of 80 are going to be poor, no matter what.
Politicians of both parties would do this in an instant if it would get them elected.
No global taxes, not now not ever.
International taxes? I hope they take a check.....hate to see what an international audit would be like....I could vote for kerry and find out..
Isn't this one of the people who Kerry plans to "bring back into the fold?"
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