Obama Endorses Global Taxes on Eve of U.N. Summit

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.

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.

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.

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.

That is a rule, not a Constitutional requirement. A filibuster can be conducted with ONE Senator present.

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.

It's already been done, many times, as the article cites with historical examples.

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Also, voice votes are frequently taken and stand unless someone present requests verification of a quorum present. We've all seen that lots of times on CSPAN.

In fact there was a voice vote taken not real long ago (it might have even been before Obama was in) that clearly went against the 'Rats and a Republican protested and was told it was too late, the vote had been taken and would stand.

I'm sorry I can't remember exactly when, what it was about, or even if it was in the House instead of the Senate. Maybe one of you will remember. There was quite a ruckus about it, but it did stand.

The Desertification Treaty ratification was done without a call for a quorum so it was probably a voice vote (I'm pretty sure it wasn't show of hands) and there is NO record of who was even present let alone who voted how or how many people were present.

Both Larry Craig and Craig Thomas were questioned later on how they could have passed something like that and both answered they didn't know about it. When they were informed that it was in the package of low importance supposedly single issue "housekeeping" treaties, they said they had been asked to pass the "package" by the "leadership".

The "leadership" at that time was Trent Lott so you can figure out who got played on that one. I would say the same wonderful "leader" who made sure that Clinton wouldn't be convicted of his impeachment and the same former leader who called for the co-opting of the TEA party moverment.

I know something about the Desertification Treaty because there were several huge threads about it including one where a FRiend of mine posted the number of Richard Douglas, Chief Counsel of the Committee on Foreign Relations. I called and Douglas deigned to talk to me, probably because I told his assistant that I wanted to straighten out any errors that may have been posted on the internet.

He was quite friendly, described himself as Jesse Helms' treaty lawyer, and told me there was no problem because the treaty contained all kinds of reservations and xxx another word I can't remember right now and that those conditions would prevent the UN from ever violating any of our laws or our Constitution...

He convinced me and told me I was the nicest lady he'd talked to all day and I went back and reported what he said to the large group of FReepers on the thread.

Those FReepers knew a lot more than I did about what was going on at the time and they said that any treaties with the UN were proclaimed by the UN NOT to be subject to any reservations or restrictions etc. and that what was on the UN website showed the treaty without any qualifiers at all.

I called Mr. Douglas back the next day and questioned him about this. He got quite snotty and told me basically that there was nothing I (or anyone else) could do about it now and that if I was serious I would have done my homework and been protesting it before it was passed.

I pointed out that it was passed in secret. He repeated that a serious person would have been monitoring the process all the time. I asked if that meant that I or others like me had to be present in the Senate 24 hours a day and he answered YES.

Even if I had a permanent place there, I wouldn't have known what was concealed in that package of treaties. By the time we were done, I was no longer that "nice" lady and I got a fast and harsh lesson in real life and real corruption.

I had that thread bookmarked and just went there to get the URL so I could link it for you, but apparently there is a time limit for keeping them as I got an error message "No such file (give_legacy_article)".

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