Obama's Global Anti-Poverty Act

know1 wrote:

It will never happen. The parties and people can talk a good game about global poverty, but until we stop viewing things from a nationalistic perspective, they won't happen (i.e. protecting U.S. jobs, strict immigration policies, limits on free trade, etc.)

It has PASSED the Senate FR Committee and if Obama is elected, it will be enacted on his coattails. He, again, sponsored and co-wrote this bill.

Most people didn't think their civil liberties would be as trampled as they are when they heard about the Patriot Act. I don't think believing it won't pass is a justification for overlooking this. It is also indicative of the types of policies he would enact as President.

Thanks by the way for actually discussing this and not name-calling. You seem to be the type of person that stays informed and tries to make rational decisions (I interpret that from other posts). I'll make my remarks below.

anotherclone wrote:

I read bill.

I think you're making some assumptions regarding the potential outcome and oversight. Considering how the program hasn't even been set up yet, I don't see how you can assume anything other than what is in the bill and a fact at this point.?

Maybe. I'm not really sure which assumptions you mean, but I'll try and guess.

I'm making assumptions about what the US GNP will be, and for that I'm going with what most of conventional wisdom is. It will transfer .7% of whatever that is to the UN.

The administration of the program IS up in the air, but I make no assumptions about it. It WILL be administered by the UN, not the U.S. - we don't know at this point which organization within the UN will administer it, but that is really irrelevent. My issue is that the US will have no say as to where the money goes once it is provided to the UN. That much is not an assumption.

I am making assumptions about how we'll fund it, but I said that. I went with the types of revenue-generating programs that have been discussed by the actual sponsors: gas tax, sales tax, etc., but again, we don't really know.

It IS an assumption that it will pass, but the bill has momentum, and so does Obama. If he's elected I believe he'll get it passed.

The only other "assumption" that maybe you would be talking about is the estimated cost per individual of $2500. I didn't make that up, it is an estimate based on projected GNP and projected number of taxpayers, and is obviously an estimate. Based on how the funds are raised that amount could be distributed disproportionately.

anotherclone wrote:

You keep saying stuff like "since we don't know much about Obama...", I've posted about 5 various links on this forum to his voting record, bills he's introduced and legislative accomplishments, both State and Federal, over the 12 years he's been in public service. I'm just curious, do you read those?

I'm glad you've investigated his record. I think that is incredibly important, and a lot of Obama (and probably every other candidate's) supporters haven't done that.

At the national level, we still don't really know that much...

I have researched just about every vote Obama has made in both the state legislature and US Senate. I didn't follow your links, but the info is available everywhere. His experience, as well as voting record, on foreign policy issues, in particular, IS incredibly limited. In the state legislature, foreign policy issues are largely non-existent, which leaves his three years in the Senate. Because of his state experience, we can make some pretty reliable guesses as to what his view on most domestic policies are, i.e. he supports the death penalty only in cases of murder , but feels it is cruel and disproportionately applied from a racial perspective, and, therefore, wants its use curtailed and possibly eliminated on other issues. On foreign policy issues, however, we are largely in the dark.

During his US Senate term, he ducked a lot of controversial votes, and from 2007 on, he missed 1/3 of them due to the campaign (so did McCain-but he has nearly 20 years of other activity to look at). Of those that were left, many are just "present" votes. This is one of the few initiatives that he actually took a serious leadership role on, so to me it is very important to evaluate. It also seems to be consistent with his views on globalism.

But this thread isn't really about Obama's record, however. We've beaten that to death on other threads. This is about this particular bill. I think it is sets a disastrous precedent for the reasons I've outlined earlier, it is unconstitutional but they have framed it as anything but a "tax" to avoid that, and it undermines our diplomatic efforts in a lot of areas, specifically bilateral relations.

We learned long ago that handing a blank check to a repressive regime (most of the poorest nations ARE respressive) pretty much guarantees that the funds never reach the people you were trying to help. In the best cases, it is squandered on luxuries by the elite of the nation, in the worst cases it is used to by equipment to further repress that country's population. That's why in most examples of bilateral foreign aid we earmark the money, we mandate certain conditions (human rights, elections, right to property, etc) in return for the aid. That's not to say that we make the best decisions on foreign aid, we certainly don't - but at least there is some level of electoral accountability.

Regardless to how it is applied, the UN will administer it, and the UN has an incredibly poor record of success in terms of these kinds of programs.

So, in the end, we put more economic hardship on the average American,
we set the precedent that it's OK for a global body with no electoral accountability to our citizens to essentially tax our citzenry, we hand the money over to an historically very inefficient and very often counterproductive organization which very often has very different goals than our nation does, and the end result is very likely nothing positive in terms of reducing poverty. The UN sent BILLIONS to LDCs in the 80s and 90s and has largely nothing to show for it, but crippling debts.

cornnifer wrote:

i'm absolutely baffled. What? Locked up? Are you serious?
i won't BE locked up for supporting this bill. Its called sarcasm. Usually by fifth or sixth grade the human brain can recognize it. My 9 year old son already can. Some genius earlier dropped a little nugget of pure brilliance about how anyone supporting this bill should be "locked away for many years". My response was "lock me up". Seen?

And then there's the "Answer my question, but you can't use the most obvious, sensible answer", debate tactic. Freakin' brilliant. (That last part was more sarcasm by the way).

Can you point out to me where that "sensible answer" was? Please just copy it here from your previous posts. I must've missed it.