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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
There, fixed it................
“It is war against America.” Indeed and it also shifts the power base firmly towards the UN.
Who will be grateful and act accordingly towards the US if the money is coming via the UN? Countries who act nicely towards the US because of your support and generosity will no longer do so. Influence and power will be the UN’s which is what the Marxists have wanted for a long time.
If this happens, then mark my words, it is the beginning of the end!
Mel
Does anybody else wonder why we still support the UN?
It tries to undermine the Constitution of the USA and
would love to cripple our Constitutional Republic.
In over 60 years the only politicians who tried to get
the USA out of the UN were Goldwater and President
Ronald Reagan who did kick UNESCO out.
GW Bush invited UNESCO back in 2002.
16 out of 17 of the AMERICANS that were involved
in creating the UN were later identified, in sworn
testimony, as secret communist agents.
Alger Hiss was Secretary-General of the United Nations
Conference on International Organization, held in April
to June 1945.
Alger Hiss served time in prison pursuant to his
involvement in a Communist spy ring.
Many of the other AMERICANS that were involved in
creating the UN fled the country, to avoid prosecution.
The ONE AMERICAN, that was involved in creating the UN;
and was NOT later identified, in sworn testimony, as a
secret communist agent, was Dean Acheson.
Dean Acheson’s law firm was the legal representative of
the Soviet Union, in US courts.
If the AMERICANS that were involved in creating the UN
were Communists, what do you think we got from the rest
of the world?
Again, Obama said he wanted this before he was elected. Why are people shocked that he is trying to do what he said he would?
FUBO
O is the global Imam.
Well if it is approved by Castro it has to be good. Look at his fine economy. < /do I have to say it?>
Accroding to Wikipedia (yes, I know the warnings) the gross world product is $58 trillion dollars, so this proposed tax would be 22% of everything produced in the world.
The Tobin Tax in a farcical example of static analysis. They pretend that by placing a tax in the range of 0.5% like Tobin originally suggested that there will be no effect on the volume of trade. Much of the trades are based on differences in values in different markets in the hundredth of a percent range (Gold is $1270 in New York and $1269.90 in London? Sell the New York gold and buy London gold!) Apply a tax of 0.5% ($6 an ounce) and that trade will never happen - never! If a 0.5% tax is put on financial transactions I wouldn't be surprised to see those transactions drop by 95% or more. Poof, there goes that $13 trillion the UN wanted to steal from the productive people of the world.
*
There is something in the back of my simple mind that says if you look deep enough into the UN and its members, everyone there has a litle GS tattooed on their heads.
Global taxes are just another way of transferring wealth from countries that earned it to countries that gladly accept it and continue the practices that made them poor nations.
These people are obsessed with transfer of wealth from those who earn it to those who lie around complaining about being poor.
I'm not certain, but I think they're talking about financing.
Good luck getting that through Congress next year, Barry.
financing UN initatives
It sounds like we're going to have a huge influx of new TEA party voters.
250 thousand dollars equals about 20 million Kenyan shillings.
I don’t know.....the overuse of the word in two sentences didn’t make it all that clear.
Yes, he sponsored the Global Poverty Act in 2008. Yes he is still pushing it today.
That FORBES article makes more sense every day...
Need to bang this drum loudly between now and 11/02/10. Tie zer0 and hence the dims running for reelection to this UN global entanglement and financial obligation.
The electorate is not at all in the mood right now for this nonsense.
yep...sadly...
I’m a little confused, this is a State Dept program right? It is at least one step better than the UN being in control of how much we pay and to whom.
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