The Global Poverty Act
The Global Poverty Act (S.2433). That sounds worthwhile. We all want to reduce global poverty. This pleasant sounding bill is sponsored by none other than Senator Barack Obama (D-God), the "new kind of politician", The Man From Hope (no wait, that was Bubba Clinton, the sexual predator president), The Audacity Of Hopester, who transcends all who came before him. He's The Great And Powerful Oz-bama. Swoon at mere mention of his name, ye lowly mortals. Pay no attention to the man in the booth.
The Global Poverty Act would commit the US to paying 0.7 percent of our Gross National Product to the United Nations to meet the UN's 2000 Millenium Development goals. This amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the US already spends in foreign aid. The US gives more in aid than any other country on this planet to begin with.
If this sounds like a global tax to you, well, it does to me too, payable to one of the most corrupt organizations on earth, the United Nations (who, btw, recently had it's Human Rights Council start on a mission to find countries who are "abusing freedom of speech". I hope you heard that. The UN is looking for countries who are too free, and calling that a problem. That's what happens when the Human Rights Council is dominated by the Arab League. They start prosecuting freedom rather than human rights violators. Also, guess who the biggest human rights violator on earth is, according to the mega-corrupt UN ??? If you said "Israel", you win first prize). The UN is a complete joke, is increasingly anti-american, is anti-Israel, is becoming anti-human rights, and is anti-sanity…and Barack Obama and others want to give it a big old chunk of our money, since we have so much extra that we don't need. All you foks out there have tons of extra money laying around, don't you ? Of course you do. That's why we don't have any problems here in America. We are rich. Yahoo ! It's a non-stop party here in the USA. The streets are paved with gold.
If you ask me, we should be considering withdrawing from the UN, not surrendering our sovereignty to it through a global tax. I think the chances of the UN eradicating global poverty with our global tax dollars are slightly less than my chances of finding an armed nuclear device in my backyard this morning.
It just occurred to me that I might be, to quote Obama, "distracting us from the issues that americans truly care about" by bringing this stuff about Barack's global tax up. If so, I truly and deeply apologize, and if Obama does become president, I will report to a re-education camp immediately. Until that time, I will operate on the assumption that this is still a somewhat free country guided by a Constitution, where the notion of paying a global tax to an unfriendly group of corrupt nations not only wouldn't be considered a good idea, but would be considered treasonous. I guess that makes me old-school, out of touch with Barry O's "new kind of politics". I hope they have real orange juice at the re-education camp. It's so much better than that sugary orange drink or that Tang stuff, and I've never even tried Sunny D. Like I said, I'm old school. But I digress…
Wait a second…Could it be that the Global Poverty Act is intended to BRING poverty to the entire globe ? Now, THAT makes sense. I should have thought of that earlier. We redistribute the wealth away from the rich people (like you and I. "Rich" will be defined as "anyone with a roof over their head"), and we give it to the UN, who will then do something with it, resulting in Global Poverty. Got it. I wonder why Obama didn't explain it like that to begin with ?
The text of the Global Poverty Act purposely avoids ANY mention of the cost of the bill, instead making it sound more like a generic and compassionate commitment to reduce poverty, as follows:
"…[The legislation] 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."
It's only when you get to the UN's Millenium Development Goals that you discover the 0.7% tax on US GNP. Nice trick, Mr. Obama. That trick got the House to pass the bill without discussion via a voice vote back in february 2008. It is set to come up for a Senate vote soon, and it seems nobody is raising much of an objection. It seems nobody is even mentioning it. So far, this is pure stealth legislation. I have yet to hear the issue raised in any newscast or in any debate. Tim Russert just spent an entire hour with Barack Obama on Meet The Press and didn't raise the issue. Making the US subservient to the United Nations seems like a major issue to me. I hope it is to others as well.
And incidentally (or not), the Global Poverty Act would also commit the USA to the Kyoto Protocol, which is part of the Millenium Development Goals. Funny how that works.
You can send a blast fax to president Bush and Republican congressional leaders to ask that they stop the Global Poverty Act here.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I saw a pretty young woman say this sort of thing might be a good idea just after she won the Miss Teen U.S.A. beauty pageant.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Fiscal responsibility is OUR responsibility. We obviously cannot depend on our leaders to be responsible and efficient with OUR money. We MUST police them and continously Hold The Accountable. Please everyone, Write Letters To The Editor and Write Often every time you become aware of something that is going to cost US money. Please keep in mind that our government and the UN seem to be competing as to which can disperse money Least Efficiently, The cost of providing goods and services is extremely high and often corrupt. We must police and report, Call to action voters to stop this over time through Electing Fiscally Conservative Leaders.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:39 am
larry,
You mean the young beauty didn't choose "world peace" ?
May 6th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Well said, Fiscal R.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:52 am
More insanity from the far-left. They say that we shouldn't "police" the world, but when it comes to our money….their actions speak otherwise.
And they squawk about 18 cents of gas relief? "It wouldn't equate to much", as spoken by a true elitist…………BO. It may not be enough to purchase his caviar, but it may mean something to many.
I've engaged in this arguement since my high school days, while combatting liberal profs. More money does not erradicate famine and poverty. It only encourages it! When people realize that they do not have adequate resources to sustain a reasonable quality of life, maybe they'll quit condemning new life to this plight. It amazes me how famines have existed for centuries, or more in certain areas, yet they continue to churn out children? Is common-sense regionally confined?
I'm not one to look down on charity because I happen to be quite generous. When we continue to overlook the root causes, and throw gas on a fire, I must question our elected officials. This is not the kind of charity, or redistribution, that is in the best interest of our hard-working citizens. This is nothing more than a backroom socialist agenda, sliding through the cracks.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
It's doubly ironic considering how tight with a nickel the man can be when it comes to donating his own money.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
You see, B. Hussein Obama views himself as a more a citizen of the world than the U.S. Isn't he special?
The only use BO and his leftwing ilk have for this great country is to put it at the service of a dysfunctional organization like the U.N.
BO wants the American taxpayer to "serve mankind" by turning the Third World — like his Keyna, no doubt — into accepted welfare recipients like what the Dims have done to the Negroes here.
One of the reasons why B. Hussien Obama is so reckless in throwing around other people's money is because he never created anything of value himself in his entire life.
As a result, he looks around and sees all the commerce, industry, inventions, advancements in the U.S. and just figures that it either 1) just sprung up out of the ground naturally or 2) America 'stole' it from others.
Instead of trying to meddle in things they know nothing about, lefties like Obama and Comdade Hillary should go out and get a real job or better yet, try to run a business.
But based on their economic ignorance and complete lack of real managerial experience, it is safe to say that neither of these two could even run a McDonald's franchise without destroying it.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I think it is much more prudent to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I agree with tbomb.
King: Calm down. You don't want to be against helping folks who are starving….do ya'?
May 7th, 2008 at 8:25 am
A very simple-minded response, Rev. By your logic, maybe we should give $8 trillion to the UN every year, because YOU DON'T WANT TO BE AGAINST HELPING FOLKS WHO ARE STARVING…DO YA?
What I'm against is paying a unconstitutional global tax to the corrupt UN (remember the Oil-For-Food program ?). I thought I made that clear. I'm not against charity. In fact, judging from the Obamas tax returns from the last several years, I believe in charity much more than they do (but in their defense, they DID have that big fancy house to pay for, not to mention those tap dancing lessons). The US is the most charitable country in the world to begin with. Your hero Obama is WAAAYYY off the mark here. I didn't think you'd have a coherent response. Maybe you should have just called me a racist instead. That non-argument is always good for you in a pinch.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:27 am
tbomb,
The Global Poverty Act should be judged on it's own merits (or lack thereof). It doesn't have anything to do with Iraq.
May 7th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
B. Hussein Obama isn't alone with regard to putting the Third World on the American dole.
A while ago, Comrade Hillary proposed billions to fund education throughout the world. You'd think she would have focused on the dismal public schools in Akron, Cleveland and other American cities first, but that's a story for another time.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Vince,
I think Hillary and Obama are pretty solidly in favor of keeping our lousy public schools lousy. That's part of the Dem plantation strategy, not to mention where a lot of their campaign funding comes from. I'm not surprised they want to fix third world schools, since fixing ours is off limits. Dems resist every common sense education idea there is. The only thing they approve of is to throw ever more and more money at the public schools, even though America already pays more than any other country for education. I think the Dem education strategy could be summed up best as 'beating a dead horse'.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Mr. King,
Inasmuch as we are being subsidized by the Chinese, I think that the money we borrow should be spent at home. There are enough people in our country who every day face a grim struggle.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Good point, Frank. We should get our own house in order before we ever consider giving another $845 billion to the UN.
However, I'm not sure politicians can get elected in this country anymore by advocating financial responsibility. "Free (fill-in-the-blank)" sells better. We tend to pick the guy offering us the lollipop.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Good analogy, King. The American public IS like a kid taking candy from a guy on the street. But too bad the guy in this case is a perv who is going to screw the hell out of the kid in short order.
And you're right too, King, in your implied call for cutting the amount of money we squander on the U.N., the most dysfunctional organization of the face of the earth, including even worse than the Dimocrat Party.
But still, such disgressionary spending — as foolish as it is — is not our main problem. What is bankrupting the country is out of control entitlements, something both political parties are responsible for. And on this score, there is, sadly, no end in sight.
[Yes, both political parties are responsible for uncontrolled entitlements. However, let's be clear. It is liberal [leftwing] ideology that promotes this pseudo-socialism while it is the conservatives & libertarians who oppose it.
The GOP is responsible for uncontrolled entitlements — like Bush's prescription medicine plan — to the extent that they are not conservatives …. or even constitutionalists.
So the nut of the problem is really one of ideology than partisanship.]
May 8th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
"What is bankrupting the country is out of control entitlements, something both political parties are responsible for."
How about that defense budget? You know, the one larger than all other nations' budgets combined?
How about that American Occupied Territory of Iraq? Occupations ain't cheap.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:28 am
As Americans, we must find a way to be fiscally conservative and socially conservative, but at the same time, divy up this pie chart of national spending so that our truer priorities are in line with reality—that should be about rebuilding a strong middle-class, our democratic (with a small d) backbone that our national body cannot walk tall without–people in the middle don't covet what their overly-rich neighbors may have, but just the ability to live on the paychecks they do get.
Without a strong, large middle-class, we as a nation are doomed===that is a fact. The poor will starve (and revolt), the rich will starve (and hide) because there will be no one left to purchase what the rich have to sell, nor anyone left willing to work for nearly nothing.
We poorer Americans are tired of working without getting ahead, but falling behind and watching as hog-humans pig out and don't share prosperity. If we don't become more kind toward each other, "There will be Blood".
May 9th, 2008 at 5:59 am
"What is bankrupting the country is out of control entitlements, something both political parties are responsible for."
Exactly true.
"How about that defense budget? You know, the one larger than all other nations' budgets combined?"
Do the numbers. Entitlements dwarft all else.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Social Security isn't in the budget…..it shouldn't be.
So, you're suggesting that the defense budget is smaller than Medicare? I'll check on that, but I think you're wrong there too.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Read what I said, Chief. Entitlements — which include Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, etc.
Let me help you. go to this USAToday article for an easy to read overview
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-28-federal-budget_N.htm
Excerpt from the article:
Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.
Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities. State and local government retirement plans account for much of the rest.
+++
The unfunded liabilities og government are set to explode as the demographic trends of the retirement & aging of baby boomers takes hold.
You may not like the war in Iraq and think — like I do — that it is far too costly. But be that as it may, the real financial time bomb that the U.S. is sitting on is not the Defense budget but social entitlements which both parties — but especially your Dims — are bound & possessed to expand.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:45 am
Great article, Vince. Politicians, especially Dems, avoid those numbers like the plague. I think every single presidential debate should start with a discussion of the growth of those unfunded liabilities that are going to kill the american dream as sure as if they shot it between the eyes. Dealing with the out of control entitlements is the mandatory first step toward responsibility that our politicians, especially Dems, have been avoiding for over 40 years. Isn't it curious how the subject NEVER comes up ?