Posted on 03/12/2002 7:52:29 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
A United Nations conference this month will ask world leaders, including President Bush, to consider global taxes to finance increased foreign aid spending.
The March 18-22 International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, is organized by the U.N. with the participation of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. It will mark the first-ever "summit-level" international conference on global development, and Bush is one of more than fifty world leaders scheduled to attend.
The conference will be preceded by a March 14-16 "global forum" of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) committed to "Financing the Right to Sustainable and Equitable Development."
However, these meetings will take place amid controversy.
A recent study conducted by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and Save the Children of the United Kingdom revealed that some humanitarian assistance was provided to refugees in Africa, mostly children, in exchange for sex.
In Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, workers from international and local NGOs and U.N. agencies, including U.N. Peacekeeping forces, were allegedly "using the very humanitarian aid and services intended to benefit the refugee population as a tool of exploitation," their report said.
Also, according to Dr. Norbert Vollertsen, a German doctor who spent 18 months inside North Korea, foreign aid funneled through the U.N. and intended to feed starving people in North Korea is instead being used for military purposes and to prop up that country's Communist regime.
Nevertheless, the push is on for a global tax to guarantee more foreign aid money.
Although the U.S. Mission to the U.N. claims to have worked to eliminate references to global taxes, the final conference document still recognizes the value of "innovative sources of finance."
'Currency Transaction Taxes'
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a January 2001 report identifying them as "currency transaction taxes" on a national and global basis which could finance "social development and poverty eradication programs" around the world.
Annan commissioned a High-Level Panel on Financing for Development, headed by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and including former Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. The panel issued a 72-page report last June proposing an International Tax Organization (ITO) and an "adequate international tax source" for global spending programs.
One idea is the Tobin tax, named after Yale University economist James Tobin, which would target transactions in the foreign currency markets that currently total between $1.2 trillion and $2 trillion a day.
Supporters call the Tobin tax the "Robin Hood tax" because it supposedly taxes the rich nations to benefit the poor. But it would also affect the IRAs, Mutual Funds and pension plans of ordinary Americans that have money invested abroad.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, (D-Ore.) and Senator Paul Wellstone, (D-Minn.), introduced a resolution on April 11, 2000, calling for implementation of Tobin-style taxes. A "Tobin Tax Campaign" in the U.S. also counts the AFL-CIO, Friends of the Earth, and the World Federalist Association as supporters.
While not openly endorsing the Tobin tax, the foreign aid lobby known as InterAction expressed alarm that the Monterrey conference document deleted a reference to "the need" for an ITO, which it described as "a powerful global authority to monitor capital flows ..."
InterAction, a coalition of American-based NGOs that receives $1 million a year in federal funds, includes organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, CARE and Save the Children, which separately receive millions of dollars in additional federal assistance.
In a Feb. 12 news conference, InterAction charged that the Bush Administration's foreign aid budget had "very serious inadequacies."
Foreign Aid Pricetag
But Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil has said that, "Over the last 50 years the world has spent an awful large amount of money in the name of development without a great deal of success." A 1995 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report said the cost of foreign aid for the U.S. over this period has been $2 trillion.
Globally, NGOs have been working with developing countries known as the G-77, the "Group of Seventy-Seven at the United Nations," which retained its original name even though it has grown to 133 nations, including Communist China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
At a G-77 summit in Havana, Cuba, two years ago, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro endorsed the Tobin tax, saying a minimum one percent tax on currency transactions "would permit the creation of a large indispensable fund" of $1 trillion annually to promote Third World development.
French Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin supports the Tobin tax, while the German Ministry for Development recently issued a report claiming that its implementation is feasible. The German study said the tax could be imposed by the European Union on foreign currencies, prompting the U.S. to take the same action.
That is why I would not be surprised if he went along w/ the UN tax.
I mean, just because Bush might go along with a global tax, doesn't mean that we have to pay it.
I like to think that he's smart enough to not go with this scheme. If he does, however, that should be considered fair grounds (and indeed, a moral obligation) for our revolting against a government that's selling us out.
Does anyone have a problem with this?
Where is the Constitution does it state that we are responsible for everyone in the world?
One thing's for sure it isn't only the rats (I can never capitalize words like that, or clinton, or senator, etc. it makes my stomach crawl). Our "friends" the pubies are just as guilty. But the answer to your question is....it's our money.
It would be quick to happen again. Tax filings would suddenly dry up. I'll tell you for sure I'd stop filing. Pronto. I'm pissed off enough that my money is stolen for individuals living in my country. I'm damn sure not going to allow even more of it to be stolen for Achmed to buy another wife.
Its republicans like you with your liberal sounding diatribes, white wash arguments against anyone who doesn't agree with you, blind faith in a man you know nearly nothing about merely because he isn't clinton and has an R behind his name, and utter failure to produce logical or rational dialogue on any subject, who give republicans a bad name. I know the first thing out of your mouth is that I'm a crazy Bush hater but I voted for the man and support a lot of what he says he is going to do. The difference between you and me is I do not trust any government, and most especially one as large and corrupt as our is. BTW, as to your little argument above...my wife is cleaning bathrooms and I'm about to take a job cleaning uniforms after getting laid off from a 6 figure income shortly after 9/11. I don't cry about it, I know I can work myself up to the top of whatever industry I can get into. Bah on you and your sweeping generalizations.
The article does not say. Will President Bush tell Koffi to pound sand? Laura just met with Koffi. I hope to God our President does not usurp our constituition and go for this,FICA takes enough of my money and I sure as hell don't want a cent going to the U.N.
By Cliff Kincaid
CNSNews.com Correspondent
March 12, 2002
(CNSNews.com) - A United Nations conference this month will ask world leaders, including President Bush, to consider global taxes to finance increased foreign aid spending.
The March 18-22 International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, is organized by the U.N. with the participation of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. It will mark the first-ever "summit-level" international conference on global development, and Bush is one of more than fifty world leaders scheduled to attend.
The conference will be preceded by a March 14-16 "global forum" of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) committed to "Financing the Right to Sustainable and Equitable Development."
However, these meetings will take place amid controversy.
A recent study conducted by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and Save the Children of the United Kingdom revealed that some humanitarian assistance was provided to refugees in Africa, mostly children, in exchange for sex.
In Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, workers from international and local NGOs and U.N. agencies, including U.N. Peacekeeping forces, were allegedly "using the very humanitarian aid and services intended to benefit the refugee population as a tool of exploitation," their report said.
Also, according to Dr. Norbert Vollertsen, a German doctor who spent 18 months inside North Korea, foreign aid funneled through the U.N. and intended to feed starving people in North Korea is instead being used for military purposes and to prop up that country's Communist regime.
Nevertheless, the push is on for a global tax to guarantee more foreign aid money.
Although the U.S. Mission to the U.N. claims to have worked to eliminate references to global taxes, the final conference document still recognizes the value of "innovative sources of finance."
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a January 2001 report identifying them as "currency transaction taxes" on a national and global basis which could finance "social development and poverty eradication programs" around the world.
Annan commissioned a High-Level Panel on Financing for Development, headed by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and including former Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. The panel issued a 72-page report last June proposing an International Tax Organization (ITO) and an "adequate international tax source" for global spending programs.
One idea is the Tobin tax, named after Yale University economist James Tobin, which would target transactions in the foreign currency markets that currently total between $1.2 trillion and $2 trillion a day.
Supporters call the Tobin tax the "Robin Hood tax" because it supposedly taxes the rich nations to benefit the poor. But it would also affect the IRAs, Mutual Funds and pension plans of ordinary Americans that have money invested abroad.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, (D-Ore.) and Senator Paul Wellstone, (D-Minn.), introduced a resolution on April 11, 2000, calling for implementation of Tobin-style taxes. A "Tobin Tax Campaign" in the U.S. also counts the AFL-CIO, Friends of the Earth, and the World Federalist Association as supporters.
While not openly endorsing the Tobin tax, the foreign aid lobby known as InterAction expressed alarm that the Monterrey conference document deleted a reference to "the need" for an ITO, which it described as "a powerful global authority to monitor capital flows ..."
InterAction, a coalition of American-based NGOs that receives $1 million a year in federal funds, includes organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, CARE and Save the Children, which separately receive millions of dollars in additional federal assistance.
In a Feb. 12 news conference, InterAction charged that the Bush Administration's foreign aid budget had "very serious inadequacies."
But Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil has said that, "Over the last 50 years the world has spent an awful large amount of money in the name of development without a great deal of success." A 1995 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report said the cost of foreign aid for the U.S. over this period has been $2 trillion.
Globally, NGOs have been working with developing countries known as the G-77, the "Group of Seventy-Seven at the United Nations," which retained its original name even though it has grown to 133 nations, including Communist China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
At a G-77 summit in Havana, Cuba, two years ago, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro endorsed the Tobin tax, saying a minimum one percent tax on currency transactions "would permit the creation of a large indispensable fund" of $1 trillion annually to promote Third World development.
French Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin supports the Tobin tax, while the German Ministry for Development recently issued a report claiming that its implementation is feasible. The German study said the tax could be imposed by the European Union on foreign currencies, prompting the U.S. to take the same action.
It is big news that went unnoticed.
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