I know as a conservative columnist I should be harping on the various and sundry issues that are swirling around the Administration like so many houseflies. After all, we have the Affordable Care Act, EPA overreach, the wholesale destruction of welfare reform, the dissolution of the borders, the recent blatant backslap to business owners…dear me I could spend an entire column on the list alone.
As germane as various donkey-bashing essays may be to discussions about the current state of the nation, it is apropos we that we pause for a moment to kick a few elephants.
Our fiscally conservative GOP friends in the House have been voting to send money over seas. This in and of itself is not a surprise but there is one organization being funded by Congress that is particularly odious - and you should make a point of broaching the subject with your legislator when he or she takes a break from the Hill to visit with the home folks.
The questions you should ask your representative is “Did you vote for OECD appropriations and if so, why do you deserve my vote over say, the raccoon in the middle of the road that I swerved to miss on my way to meet with you?”
OECD stands for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and is based not surprisingly in Paris. The original idea behind the OECD when it was founded back in 1960 was to have it promote trade between developed nations. It has devolved into a big-government wealth- redistribution engine with an international reach. It promotes among other things VAT taxes and Keynesian policy.
The money it administers often goes to corrupt and oppressive governments. Not only are your tax dollars funding this, but the people whose salaries are financed by your tax dollars have been authorizing it. And while the OECD may want to redistribute money from developed nations, its employees apparently have no compunctions about living large themselves, with nice offices in the City Of Lights and tax free salaries.
All on your nickel. And the OECD needs a lot of your nickels. It has an annual budget of 400 million dollars and you are picking up the tab for about 22 percent of that.
That should be enough for you to start circulating recall petitions in your neighborhood, but the fun doesn’t end there. Richard Rahn of the Washington Times notes that the OECD is blowing its own horn over the fact that it has made strides in the sharing of tax information across international lines.
Yes, you read that right.
Let’s take a quick time-out to recap: The people whose salaries you pay via taxes have been voting to send more of your taxes to an organization that often funds dictatorships. That organization is now working to pass on your tax information to those regimes.
The information going overseas is supposed to be “bulk taxpayer information” and confidential information is protected. Right. Do you want your tax returns and information about your finances automatically shared with governments with whom you would not trust a burnt match?
And yes, the OECD has the support of the Obama Administration, but that goes without saying. The eye-opener here is that the Cut, Cap, Balance and Bush-Tax-Cut-Extension-crowd in the House of Representatives keeps giving the stamp of approval to this travesty.
The GOP cannot blame the Democrats in a legislative body in which it is the majority.
The President may support the OECD, but House Republicans keep voting to fund it. How they can lip-sync to their greatest hits like “Fiscal Responsibility”, “Spending Cuts” and “We’re Headed Off A Financial Cliff” (available now from RINO Records) and still vote to fund the OECD is beyond me.
Maybe they weren’t paying attention, and didn’t read the bill fully when they voted for it. Well if that is the case, they lose the opportunity to carp about a 2700 page Health Care Bill that no one got a chance to read. The fact is they don’t have an excuse. Well they don’t have a viable excuse.
So the next time the Republican Road Show is in your town, why not ask your friendly representative if they voted to fund the OECD, and if they did not, ask why they haven’t come up with a bill or amendment to stop it? They certainly have the votes.