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Posted on 09/17/2010 7:00:06 AM PDT by unspun
In a classic case of misdirection, while the media are preoccupied with the fate of the Bush tax cuts, President Obama is preparing to attend a United Nations summit next week to endorse “innovative finance mechanisms”—global taxes—to drain even more wealth out of the U.S. economy.
A draft “outcome document” produced in advance of the September 20-22 U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) commits the nations of the world to supporting “innovative financing mechanisms” to supplement foreign aid spending.
The term “innovative financing mechanisms” is a U.N. euphemism for global taxes. But the document actually goes further, praising the “Task Force on International Financial Transactions for Development” for its work on the subject of mobilizing additional “resources” for countries to achieve the MDGs. This is a body tasked with proposing and implementing global tax schemes.
“We consider,” the document says, “that innovative financing mechanisms can make a positive contribution in assisting developing countries to mobilize additional resources for financing for development on a voluntary basis. Such financing should supplement and not be a substitute for traditional sources of financing.”
In other words, the revenue from global taxes should be in addition to foreign aid spending.
The document recognized the “considerable progress” made in this area, an acknowledgement that an international tax by some nations on airline tickets is already in effect and producing several billions of dollars of revenue for world organizations to fight AIDS and other diseases.
In an article in The Christian Science Monitor, under the headline, “Small global taxes would make a big difference for world’s ‘bottom billion,’” the foreign minister of France and other officials of foreign nations endorse various forms of “innovative development financing.” One of their proposals is a tax on international currency transactions that could generate $35 billion a year.
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The proposal, popular at the United Nations for decades and long-advocated by Fidel Castro, is called the Tobin Tax and named after Yale University economist James Tobin. Steven Solomon, a former staff reporter at Forbes, said in his book, The Confidence Game, that such a proposal “might net some $13 trillion a year…” because it is based on taking a percentage of money from the trillions of dollars exchanged daily in global financial markets.
He is referring to the fact that once such a tax is in place, it could be easily raised to bring in hundreds of billions of dollars or more a year to the U.N. and other global institutions.
Such financial transactions through banks and other financial institutions are commonplace on behalf of Americans who have stock in mutual funds or companies that invest or operate overseas. Hence, such a global tax could affect the stocks, mutual funds, and pensions of ordinary Americans.
The term “small global taxes” brought a stunned reaction from Senator David Vitter, when he was told of what is being proposed in advance of the U.N. summit. Vitter introduced Senate resolution 461, “Expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should reject any proposal for the creation of a system of global taxation and regulation,” to put the Senate on record against any such measure. He has vowed to maintain pressure on the world body to avoid implementing any of these schemes and thinks that the Congress has to use whatever financial leverage it has to frustrate U.N. demands for more power and authority in world affairs.
The Vitter resolution was sent to the liberal-controlled Senate Finance Committee, which declined to act on it.
Obama has been a major U.N. supporter since he was in the Senate and sponsored a bill, the Global Poverty Act (S 2433), to force U.S. compliance with the MDGs. Joseph Biden, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tried to get it passed into law but ultimately failed.
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As President, Obama is in a position to actively promote global taxation measures and clearly has done so. The “outcome document” his administration has already endorsed will be formally approved at next week’s summit.
The document affirms the so-called “Monterrey Consensus” that committed nations to spending 0.7 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) on official development assistance (ODA), otherwise known as foreign aid. It says that “The fulfillment of all ODA commitments is crucial, including the commitments by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) for ODA to developing countries by 2015…”
Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.’s Financing for Development conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the Millennium Development Goals, this amounts to $845 billion from the U.S. alone, according to Jeffrey Sachs of the U.N.’s Millennium Project.
“We have fully embraced the Millennium Development Goals,” Obama told the U.N. in 2009.
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and may be contacted cliff.kincaid@aim.org.
Graphic images added by Gulag Bound
Wow, for a complete moron, Obama is singularly at the bottom of that category. He’s looking up at everyone.....
IDIOCY ... its how Obama thinks.
sfl
Sooner I would think\hope.
The US global tax rate should be NEGATIVE since most of the rest of the world is sponging off of our military to keep the peace and expunge troublemakers.
All Obama needs to do is sign a agreement, and have Congress write a Federal law that mirrors the agreement and pass it with simple majorities. In the Senate, they go nuclear with it. Then, it becomes law. In this way, Obama avoids having to get 2/3’s of the Senate to ratify it.
You can go around the treaty requirement by writing a Federal bill that mirrors the treaty and having simple majorities of the House and Senate vote for it.
Time to remove ourselves from that anti-American organization, throw the bastards out of our great country, and our damn president can go with them!
There, fixed it. Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (which the United has never ratified but has respected ever since it went into force, thus creating a massive body of bogus "settled law"), once any agent of the government signs the document, the nation he represents is bound not to contravene it.
As to 2/3 of the Senate, please, read the Constitution; that is not what it says the standard of ratification is; it is "two thirds of Senators PRESENT." See above.
Keep it up RATS, it’s bound to bring in a lot of votes on Nov. 2nd.
Fortunately a good percentage of the clueless will be staying at home on 11/02 unlike 08. The next issue will be controlling the fraud.
That could be, but I don't see what the Georgia Satellites have to do with all of this.
Wait a minute.
"I've got a little change in my pocket..."
You could be on to something here.
Keeping our eye on the ball ping
Eliminate any funding to the United Nations.
Any money needed to feed the children can go right to feed the children.
I am full aware of the 2/3 PRESENT stipulation. I think that it was written that way to force senators to show up for such important votes and actually cast a vote. First of all, the Senate must have a quorum in order to hold any vote, i.e. 51 senators must be present to conduct business. Second, if the Rats tried to hold a dark of night secret vote to pass this, or tried some shenanigan like that, they would be crucified and they know it. You can bet your bottom dollar that there would be a lawsuit to overturn it before the ink was dry on the first editorial.
If it were only true.
An income stream for the U. N. is something they have been wanting for a long time.
No way! As for global aide, we’re such wonderful supporters of it, that when our government gets through spreading tens of billions of dollars worth of it around in cash, military equipment, loan guarantees, and relief aide, our citizens actually send tens of billions more.
At this point it’s merely a way to sap this nation dry. Income is dragging. Housing equity is collapsing. The poverty rate is soaring. So what do we do, we flood the television with excellent projects for the American public to donate to.
Folks, if you want to donate to ANY cause right now, please donate to the U. S. economy by buying something. When you do, you employ fellow citizens. When you donate to a cause, they essentially burn off your money and return for more.
Once this economic downturn is over, there’ll still be thousands of causes to donate to.
My household is donating to our fellow citizen’s job pool.
You forget about the filibuster in the Senate. Also, that would be the stroke of the pen that destroyed the Rat Party.
Also, to fools, his “blackness” trumped all logic and reason.
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