International
Bailout Brings Us Closer to Economic Collapse Posted by Ron Paul
(06-22-2009, 12:41 PM)
Last
week Congress passed the war supplemental appropriations bill.
In an affront to all those who thought they voted for a peace
candidate, the current president will be sending another $106
billion we don’t have to continue the bloodshed in Afghanistan
and Iraq, without a hint of a plan to bring our troops home.
Many of my colleagues who voted with me as I opposed every
war supplemental request under the previous administration
seem to have changed their tune. I maintain that a vote to
fund the war is a vote in favor of the war. Congress exercises
its constitutional prerogatives through the power of the purse,
and as long as Congress continues to enable these dangerous
interventions abroad, there is no end in sight, that is until
we face total economic collapse.
From their spending habits, an economic collapse seems to
be the goal of Congress and this administration. Washington
spends with impunity domestically, bailing out and nationalizing
everything they can get their hands on, and the foreign aid
and IMF funding in this bill can rightly be called an international
bailout!
As Americans struggle through the worst economic downturn
since the Great Depression, this emergency supplemental appropriations
bill sends $660 million to Gaza, $555 million to Israel, $310
million to Egypt, $300 million to Jordan, and $420 million
to Mexico. Some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations
for so-called “peacekeeping” missions. Almost one billion
dollars will be sent overseas to address the global financial
crisis outside our borders. Nearly $8 billion will be spent
to address a “potential pandemic flu” which could result in
mandatory vaccinations for no discernable reason other than
to enrich the Pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccine.
Perhaps most outrageous is the $108 billion loan guarantee
to the International Monetary Fund. These new loan guarantees
will allow that destructive organization to continue spending
taxpayer money to prop up corrupt leaders and promote harmful
economic policies overseas.
Not only does sending American taxpayer money to the IMF
hurt citizens here, evidence shows that it even hurts those
it pretends to help. Along with IMF loans comes IMF required
policy changes, called Structural Adjustment Programs, which
amount to forced Keynesianism. This is the very fantasy-infused
economic model that has brought our own country to its knees,
and IMF loans act as the Trojan Horse to inflict it on others.
Perhaps most troubling is the fact that leaders in recipient
nations tend to become more concerned with the wishes of international
elites than the wishes and needs of their own people. Argentina
and Kenya are just two examples of countries that followed
IMF mandates right off a cliff. The IMF frequently recommends
currency devaluation to poorer nations, which has wiped out
the already impoverished over and over. There is also a long
list of brutal dictators the IMF happily supported and propped
up with loans that left their oppressed populace in staggering
amounts of debt with no economic progress to show for it.
We are buying nothing but evil and global oppression by sending
your taxdollars to the IMF. Not to mention there is no Constitutional
authority to do so. Our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan
does not make us safer at home, but in fact undermines our
national security. I vehemently opposed this Supplemental
Appropriations Bill and was dismayed to see it pass so easily.