Bush-Bashing Left Pushes Global Taxes
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Cliff Kincaid
Exclusive for NewsMax.com
Wednesday, April 10, 2002WASHINGTON – Bush-bashing was on display Tuesday as activists from Germany, the U.S. and other countries urged international pressure on the Bush administration to support global taxes, the creation of more global agencies, and drastic cuts in American living standards in the name of "sustainable development” for the world.
Hilary French, who runs "Global Governance Project” of U.S.-based Worldwatch Institute, suggested that Americans had to get over "the sovereignty thing” and embrace global taxes. She endorsed an international currency tax to generate as much as $300 billion a year for global agencies.
"A lot of these ideas are more accepted in Europe,” where people are "more accepting of government and taxation” and a European Union has emerged to eclipse the power of national governments, she said.
'Shame the United States'
However, she insisted that the U.S. government could be pressured to go along with a global tax scheme if Europe and the rest of the world "shame the United States” and depict us as out of step with the international consensus.
She maintained that the proposed global currency tax, which would affect Americans’ IRAs, mutual funds and pension plans, was a "small tax” that wouldn’t "significantly affect anyone’s retirement income.” She said "vested interests opposed to these taxes,” such as investment companies, "would whip up public opposition and concern.”
French said it might be comparable to the campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton’s plan for socialized medicine. It would be "misleading” and irresponsible, she said.
How About 'Government Accountability'?
French, who said she was not necessarily against private property rights, called for a World Environment Organization and a convention or treaty to safeguard "community resource rights” over such activities as fishing and access to water. She urged a "Framework for Socially Accountable Production” and a treaty for "corporate accountability.”
French was one of three speakers at the event, sponsored by Heinrich Boll Foundation of the German Green Party and held at (oh, irony) the Ronald Reagan Building. The purpose was to discuss a "Memorandum for the World Summit on Sustainable Development,” scheduled for South Africa this fall.
Geoffrey D. Dabelko of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars introduced the event. He said his group was "a nonpartisan, non-advocacy institute,” created by an act of Congress in 1968, which receives taxpayer dollars from federal agencies such as the Office of Population of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
German Tells Americans How to Vote
The other two speakers, Ashok Khosla of India and Wolfgang Sachs of the German Green Party, ripped into the Bush administration for its approach to global affairs. Khosla said the U.S. had "abrogated its responsibility” and was taking a "very profoundly disturbing and negative role” in world affairs. Sachs said Europe should "forget about America as long as this administration exists” and recommended that the American people "shift their preferences” in future elections.
Sachs said he once saw "some awareness” of a need for sustainable development among advisers to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "I don’t see it anymore.”
Their report, dubbed "The Johannesburg Memo,” criticized the Bush administration as the "notable exception” to countries endorsing the Kyoto protocol on "global warming." Bush rejected the treaty for its bias against U.S. economic interests, and the U.S. Senate voted against it 95-0.
The audience included representatives of the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the British and South African embassies.
Dummied Up
None of the audience members took issue with the recommendations of the memorandum, which included a proposed 80-90 percent cut in the use of "environmental space” by "consumer classes” in the U.S. and other developed countries over the next 50 years.
The document explains "environmental space” by the use of resources. For example, it says Americans use an average of 82 tons of fuels, minerals and metals annually, versus the average German at 80 tons and the average Chinese at 34 tons.
Politically, Sachs said, he didn’t know how the American people could be persuaded to go along with such draconian cuts in their use of resources. But he thought it was doable if changes in technology, infrastructure and energy sources were implemented over time.
The report calls for a shift to solar and wind power; the creation of regional food markets, as opposed to neighborhood grocery stores; low-speed cars; recyclable appliances; and low-meat diets. Such an outcome, the report insists, can still produce "a comfortable style of living.”
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
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