$845,000,000,000 - income redistribution

[Tigermike 3,046]

June 26, 2008

Obama's Global Tax Bill Coming Soon

Lee Cary

The Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S.2433) is coming up for a Senate vote sometime after the July 4 recess, according the office of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Once Harry Reid and the Democrat leadership put it on the calendar, we could have as little as a week to prepare for the vote.

The bill is sponsored in the Senate by Barack Obama.

If passed, it will cost taxpayers $845,000,000,000 over the next 13 years, in addition to our current foreign aid expenditures.

And the best part is that it will be administered in conjunction with...brace yourselves...the United Nations. The same one of "Food-for-Oil" fame.

It passed (H.R. 1302) earlier by a unanimous voice vote in the House.

It's about global income redistribution. Their distribution - our income.

Heard much debate about it? Ah, it's only 8.5 tenths of a trillion.

February 19, 2008

Obama's Global Tax

By Lee Cary

Senator Barack Obama's sponsorship of Senate Bill 2433 aligns with the emerging core theme of his general election campaign. The change he promises will bring much-needed relief, not just to America's victims of economic injustice, but to victims worldwide.

On December 7, 2007, Obama introduced the Senate version of the Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S.2433). On February 13, the bill cleared the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, on which Obama and 6 (Biden, Dodd, Feingold, Hagel, Lugar, Menendez) of the bill's 9 co-sponsors serve. The House version of the bill (H.R.1302) passed by a unanimous voice vote last September 25.

Here's an abstract of the proposed legislation:

"To require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the [u.N.] Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day."

If enacted, how much of a financial commitment would that represent to taxpayers?

One estimate is 0.7% of gross national product, or an additional $845 billion over 13 years in addition to existing foreign aid expenditures. So far, this proposal is barely on the MSM radar, but we're likely hear more about it as a full Senate vote approaches.

Here's how Senator Obama's website frames the bill:

"With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world, global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the international community faces," said Senator Obama. "It must be a priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking water. As we strive to rebuild America's standing in the world, this important bill will demonstrate our promise and commitment to those in the developing world. Our commitment to the global economy must extend beyond trade agreements that are more about increasing corporate profits than about helping workers and small farmers everywhere."

In other words, other nations will like us better if we give them our money. And, our trade agreements should not be about business profit, but benevolent social action.

The Global Candidate's sponsorship of the Global Poverty Act thematically aligns with the oft-told story of his life as a child of international parents, as well as with his elliptical juxtaposition of hope and change. He not only offers hope to his U.S. audiences, but to poor children, workers, and small farmers across the globe. George W. Bush's grand theme of spreading democracy globally evolved after 9/11. Obama's grand theme is to spread America's wealth to the world's poor, as the onetime community organizer from the streets of South Chicago goes global.

The species of hope that Barack Obama preaches is a first cousin of disappointment. He speaks to his followers as though they are victims, and it resonates with them because victimhood is a latent element of their collective self-image. Most of the younger ones in his audiences face historically unprecedented educational and vocational opportunities. Within the reasonable grasp of their individual initiatives is a future that is the envy of most of the world's youth. Yet they look longingly for someone from the government to offer them hope.

He says, "It's not too late to claim the American dream," and they cheer wildly, and some even cry.

Don't they know that the American dream isn't a wish granted by a politician, or an entitlement from the government? Do they need a political seer to tell them what to hope for, and dream of, because they are unable to find it for themselves?

In his most recent victory speech, delivered in Madison, Wisconsin on February 13, Obama named some of those guilty of creating America's victims. They included:

Exxon, turning record profits from high pump prices;

Wall Street, whose agenda smothers Main Street;

NAFTA, where the American worker has no voice at the negotiating table; and

Lobbyists, who drown out the peoples' voice.

At the end of the list, he did what he will do for the next eight months if he is the Democrat nominee: he linked John McCain to Bush-Iraq and the past, while he, Obama, is the future. How do you debate a self-proclaimed personification of the future?

Those who feel like victims want the guilty exposed and loathed. In Texas, the Obama campaign is airing radio ads where their candidate claims that "some CEOs make more in 10 minutes than some American workers make in a year." The claim may be literally accurate, in that "some" need only be more than one. It does make an emotional appeal to fairness, but the math doesn't work. In 2005, the combined income of the CEOs of the 500 largest U.S. companies was $5.1 billion. Their average pay for 10 minutes work, based on a 40 hour work week, was $961.50. The minimum wage yields an annual salary of about $12,000. Sure, the gross disparity between CEO and average worker pay is a valid issue. And, for a relatively few CEOs and other mega-earners like Oprah Winfrey, top professional athletes, and major Hollywood movie stars, Obama's claim may be mathematically accurate. But as a blanket assertion, it's a level of derogatory rhetoric that only works when adulation kills critical thinking.

In the days ahead, the Global Candidate will cite multinational corporations as the leading exploiters of the world's poor, with Wall Street's favorites leading the pack. He'll call for America to spread its wealth abroad, rather than its weaponry. He'll summon us to dispatch across the globe the young workers of the Peace Corps, instead of the young warriors of the Marine Corps, as lions lay with lambs, and we beat our swords into plowshares.

All the while, the adoring crowds will grow larger, and more will cry.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/the...e_proposes.html

[BamaGrad03 0]

So we don't already have enough of our wealth redistributed?

[arnaldoabru 11]

So we don't already have enough of our wealth redistributed?

Mine is being redistrbuted already-to Exxon, Chevron, and Arabs who run these wonderful democracies.

[BamaGrad03 0]

So we don't already have enough of our wealth redistributed?

Mine is being redistrbuted already-to Exxon, Chevron, and Arabs who run these wonderful democracies.

To be fair, even with the tripling of your price at the pump in the last 5 years or so, it still makes up a tiny fraction compared to what you pay annually in taxes.

[AUTiger1 0]

I mentioned the other day that this is something that is getting overlooked by the MSM. Global redistribution of American's income and to be done through the ever corrupt UN. In order to get others to like us, we should give them our money, which we will have no say so in how it is disrtibuted? Great Idea!

[otterinbham 0]

I mentioned the other day that this is something that is getting overlooked by the MSM. Global redistribution of American's income and to be done through the ever corrupt UN. In order to get others to like us, we should give them our money, which we will have no say so in how it is disrtibuted? Great Idea!

The tragedy of all this is how absolutely ineffective these foreign programs have proven. A great volume from Otter's bookshelf is "White Man's Burden," written by a foreign aid specialist who contends rather damningly that these programs are actually deepening poverty in developing countries, not resolving it.

[TexasTiger 12,992]

So we don't already have enough of our wealth redistributed?

Mine is being redistrbuted already-to Exxon, Chevron, and Arabs who run these wonderful democracies.

To be fair, even with the tripling of your price at the pump in the last 5 years or so, it still makes up a tiny fraction compared to what you pay annually in taxes.

You're right. It's being redistributed to Halliburton.

[Justin5 20]

I dont know where that article got its info, but it's wrong.

According to the Congressional Budget office

Based on information from the State Department, CBO estimates that implementing S. 2433 would cost less than $1 million per year, assuming the availability of appropriated funds. Enacting the bill would not affect direct spending or receipts.

Also,

S. 2433 was introduced by Senators Obama, Hagel, and Cantwell on December 7, 2007. It is cosponsored by Senators Feinstein, Lugar, Durbin, Menendez, Biden, Dodd, Feingold, Snowe, Murray, Harkin, Johnson, and Smith.

[autigeremt 6,660]

It's dead wrong, and it needs to be flamed out! Look past your noses people, Obama is the Socialist that I have been warning you about. And so are the democrats.

BAD FOR AMERICA!

[Justin5 20]

Once again, facts I post are debated with meaningless, off-topic comments. *Sigh*, I'm starting to get sick of this area of the forums. Maybe I'll take a break.

[autigeremt 6,660]

If you don't like what is posted, then do that. Take a break. It would be similar in nature to the cut and run of the democratic party. (JK)

[WinCrimson 61]

It's dead wrong, and it needs to be flamed out! Look past your noses people, Obama is the Socialist that I have been warning you about. And so are the democrats.

BAD FOR AMERICA!

OH NOES!!!11

[arnaldoabru 11]

Once again, facts I post are debated with meaningless, off-topic comments. *Sigh*, I'm starting to get sick of this area of the forums. Maybe I'll take a break.

You have to hang tough. This is all part of their plan.

[CCTAU 3,336]

So since it's only a billion dollars, it's OK to just give it to the most corrupt organization in the world?

Couldn't we just spend the billion on DDT in Africa and save more lives?

[otterinbham 0]

Once again, facts I post are debated with meaningless, off-topic comments. *Sigh*, I'm starting to get sick of this area of the forums. Maybe I'll take a break.

You're right. Let's get back to the core issue here. Namely, that the Democratic nominee introduced legislation that supports taking $85 billion of taxpayer money annually and funneling it into international aid, even though the entire network of international assistance has proven to be an absolute, demonstrable failure. Literally trillions of dollars have gone to subsaharan Africa in the past three decades through the same channels that Obama wants to use today. In short, he wants to throw good money after bad, all so we can make some grand, yet meaningless gesture.

I tell you, if you would get past all the symbolic nonsense, you realize that this guy is really representing some very strange economic thinking. Bush was bad. But Obama would be worse.

[autigeremt 6,660]

845 billion worse.

[WinCrimson 61]

Was it not just posted that it wouldn't cost $845 billion?

[HuntsvilleTiger 0]

Was it not just posted that it wouldn't cost $845 billion?

It was, but it was also just posted that it would cost that... If you read the original posted line you'll see a link to this site: http://www.aim.org/aim-column/print/obamas...or-senate-vote/

which states:

The legislation itself requires the President "to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day." 

The bill defines the term "Millennium Development Goals" as the goals set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, General Assembly Resolution 55/2 (2000).  

The U.N. says that "The commitment to provide 0.7% of gross national product (GNP) as official development assistance was first made 35 years ago in a General Assembly resolution, but it has been reaffirmed repeatedly over the years, including at the 2002 global Financing for Development conference in Monterrey, Mexico. However, in 2004, total aid from the industrialized countries totaled just $78.6 billion-or about 0.25% of their collective GNP."  

In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits nations to banning "small arms and light weapons" and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

The Millennium Declaration also affirms the U.N. as "the indispensable common house of the entire human family, through which we will seek to realize our universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and development."

Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the U.N.'s "Millennium Project," says that the U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of GNP in increased foreign aid spending would add $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already spends. 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. And the only way to raise that kind of money, Sachs has written, is through a global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels.  

So...as you can see there's others who believe based on what the UN says that it will indeed cost the U.S. 845 BILLION dollars!

And a lot lot more if we allow the UN to be "the indispensable common house of the entire human family, through which we will seek to realize our universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and development."

Thanks but NO Thanks!

[Justin5 20]

Ok, I'm sorry - this is complete bull.

I have read the bill. It DOES mention achieving all of the millennium development goals.

SEC. 5. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES- The term `appropriate congressional committees' means--

(A) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate; and

( the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives.

(2) EXTREME GLOBAL POVERTY- The term `extreme global poverty' refers to the conditions in which individuals live on less than $1 per day, adjusted for purchasing power parity in 1993 United States dollars, according to World Bank statistics.

(3) GLOBAL POVERTY- The term `global poverty' refers to the conditions in which individuals live on less than $2 per day, adjusted for purchasing power parity in 1993 United States dollars, according to World Bank statistics.

(4) MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS- The term `Millennium Development Goals' means the goals set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, General Assembly Resolution 55/2 (2000).

Amend the title so as to read: `An Act to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.'.

Unfortunately for the anti-Obama people here, I also read the goals the UN outlined. In fact they are right here: http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm

Nowhere in there does it mention the .7 percent of GDP.

Granted, that may have been discussed in the past, but this debate is about the BILL. The BILL says to do the goals. Go ahead and read them.

You taking a quote and tying it to the bill. You *could* tie the two together, but in no way does this bill FORCE us to pay $845 billion. That is simply SPIN SPIN SPIN.

[autigeremt 6,660]

The end is the in the means, Justin. It's not always what you see on the cover that makes the book (you know this). The United States should not enter into such an agreement, for it's the responsibility of all to rise up, and not that of the U.S.

This bill is outlandish, and scary.

[otterinbham 0]

Ok, I'm sorry - this is complete bull.

I have read the bill. It DOES mention achieving all of the millennium development goals.

SEC. 5. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES- The term `appropriate congressional committees' means--

(A) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate; and

( the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives.

(2) EXTREME GLOBAL POVERTY- The term `extreme global poverty' refers to the conditions in which individuals live on less than $1 per day, adjusted for purchasing power parity in 1993 United States dollars, according to World Bank statistics.

(3) GLOBAL POVERTY- The term `global poverty' refers to the conditions in which individuals live on less than $2 per day, adjusted for purchasing power parity in 1993 United States dollars, according to World Bank statistics.

(4) MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS- The term `Millennium Development Goals' means the goals set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, General Assembly Resolution 55/2 (2000).

Amend the title so as to read: `An Act to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.'.

Unfortunately for the anti-Obama people here, I also read the goals the UN outlined. In fact they are right here: http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm

Nowhere in there does it mention the .7 percent of GDP.

Granted, that may have been discussed in the past, but this debate is about the BILL. The BILL says to do the goals. Go ahead and read them.

You taking a quote and tying it to the bill. You *could* tie the two together, but in no way does this bill FORCE us to pay $845 billion. That is simply SPIN SPIN SPIN.

The issue remains the same. The sad allegiance to discredited economic development theory that keeps being regurgitated by international "relief" agencies with extremely dubious track records.

Africa, for example, is an extremely rich continent with vast mineral wealth and agriculatural potential. Yet the trillions of dollars spend there have been lost due to inefficiency, corruption, and misguided Keynsian economic theories. If you really want to change the nature of policy in the developing world, amass 5 million soldiers, occupy Africa, and shoot the current political leadership of most of those places.

[HuntsvilleTiger 0]

Ok, I'm sorry - this is complete bull.

I have read the bill. It DOES mention achieving all of the millennium development goals.

SEC. 5. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES- The term `appropriate congressional committees' means--

(A) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate; and

( the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives.

(2) EXTREME GLOBAL POVERTY- The term `extreme global poverty' refers to the conditions in which individuals live on less than $1 per day, adjusted for purchasing power parity in 1993 United States dollars, according to World Bank statistics.

(3) GLOBAL POVERTY- The term `global poverty' refers to the conditions in which individuals live on less than $2 per day, adjusted for purchasing power parity in 1993 United States dollars, according to World Bank statistics.

(4) MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS- The term `Millennium Development Goals' means the goals set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, General Assembly Resolution 55/2 (2000).

Amend the title so as to read: `An Act to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.'.

Unfortunately for the anti-Obama people here, I also read the goals the UN outlined. In fact they are right here: http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm

Nowhere in there does it mention the .7 percent of GDP.

Granted, that may have been discussed in the past, but this debate is about the BILL. The BILL says to do the goals. Go ahead and read them.

You taking a quote and tying it to the bill. You *could* tie the two together, but in no way does this bill FORCE us to pay $845 billion. That is simply SPIN SPIN SPIN.

But you're $1,000,000 a year will pay for the "reducing by one-half the proportion of people, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day."? If that's the case, why doesn't BONO or some of the other feel gooders come up with the $25 Million themselves? I agree that it might not cost $840+ Billion but $25 Million is completely unbelievable. Like I said, Bono, Angelina, and a few others can do that by themselves in an instant and leave the rest of us alone about it.

[Justin5 20]

My point, and the only one I am really trying to make - is the $845b is complete spin. This bill puts us under no pay requirements.

I'm not trying to debate the merits of the bill.

[tiger88 934]

Once again, facts I post are debated with meaningless, off-topic comments. *Sigh*, I'm starting to get sick of this area of the forums. Maybe I'll take a break.

You have to hang tough. This is all part of their plan.

Said tweetle dee to tweetle dum.

[au2004ece 30]

My point, and the only one I am really trying to make - is the $845b is complete spin. This bill puts us under no pay requirements.

I'm not trying to debate the merits of the bill.

Obama's support for the bill shows his willingness to support such discredited organizations and his willingness to attempt to use American taxpayer money to do what the bill says he should do if president. So, these people estimated that it would actually cost 845 billion to achieve the goals. Your quoted estimate of 1 million per year is what it would cost to think about what it would take the achieve the goals.

So, given that Obama supports the bill, I do not believe that he would only spend the 1 million per year and just think about achieving the goals. I believe that he would use American taxpayers money to do attempt to achieve the goals.