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Linda wrote:
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date:
Mon, 31 Jul 2006 00:03:36 -0400
Subject: [FTC] Unworkable and Dangerous: UN
Tax Authority
Dear Troops,
The long discussed
United Nations plan for a global tax has been firmed up
in recent years
and is now proceeding full steam along two tracks, neither
of them
workable and both dangerous. One track seeks an independent
funding source
so the United Nations can operate unfettered by political
wrangling. The
other track seeks to redistribute wealth from rich to poor
nations.
Worse yet, endowing the United Nations with the power to tax sets us
firmly on the course to world government. With corrupt UN bureaucrats at
the helm who can be counted upon to keep pushing the envelope, conspiracy
theory one day can become stark reality the next day. All that's needed is
for Americans to go along.
To make that happen, the United Nations
is trying to sweeten the deal to
make the "tax pill" go down a lot easier
for those too squeamish to
readily appreciate the plan's
brilliance.
See Nathan's latest column below. Feel free to pass it on
to all.
FTC-Linda
-----------------
Tax Authority for the
United Nations
by Nathan J. Muller - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For the
Cause - forthecause.us
The United Nations plan for a global tax has
been in the works since at
least 2001 and is proceeding along two
tracks.
One track is a tax mechanism for the redistribution of income
from wealthy
nations to poor nations to achieve a variety of goals: reduce
poverty,
improve education and health care, eliminate diseases, and
prevent
environmental degradation -- all by the 2015 deadline set by the
U.N.
General Assembly in 2000.
The other track calls for a global
tax as an independent source of
financing UN operations. The idea behind
this proposal is to take politics
out of the funding process so that the
UN can get on with carrying out its
very important intitiatives, one of
which is putting into place a system
of taxes to redistribute
wealth.
What's not to like?
The chief sticking point on any
global tax is the United States. To make
the "tax pill" easier for
Americans to swallow, the UN has proposed a
number of ways to disguise the
taste.
At the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) held in
Brazil in
2004, that country's president, Lula da Silva, suggested and
still
suggests the need for a tax on speculative financial transactions,
especially those conducted in international "tax havens." Since not many
middle class Americans engage in such activities, who would object except
the filthy rich?
Why not tax all currency transactions? This would
provide a double bang
for the buck -- decrease currency speculation and
provide more resources
for democratically decided "good issues." This
sounds very appealing
indeed.
How about an arms tax? If just one
percent of arms sales were paid each
year into a global fund, administered
by the United Nations, it would
raise hundreds of millions of dollars.
Part of that money could then be
used for post-conflict rehabilitation and
government building in the least
developed countries. Sounding
better?
And then there's the "polluters tax" whereby companies that
extract
natural resources would pay a percentage of the value of the
wealth they
earn. That money would go into a UN fund and be used to
improve or restore
the environment in poor countries. Now that global
warming is upon us, why
not such a tax?
There are at least a dozen
other tax proposals floating around the UN, all
calculated to get
Americans on board. In fact, the taxes are so deftly
presented that many
of our own sleazy politicians may be hard pressed to
object.
Take
the proposal to tax email... E-mail users would pay a tax of about
$.01
for each "megabyte" of data they send. Given the volume of email
involved
-- assuming the complexity of management and collection could be
overcome
-- this scheme could generate tens of billions of dollars a year
for the
UN to redistribute toward narrowing the "digital divide" between
rich and
poor countries.
Other proposals include a tax on commercial fishing,
international travel,
satellites, use of the radio spectrum for broadcast
and two-way
communications, and even one for international advertising. A
system of
fines is also under consideration for offences such as ocean
dumping.
If all these tax proposals were put into effect, the UN would
have an
estimated $7 trillion to redistribute annually, according to the
United
Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Unworkable, even
dangerous
Aside from falling mainly on U.S. citizens, any tax plan
would have
serious ramifications that make it unworkable and even
dangerous.
First, a global tax for providing an independent revenue
source for UN
operations would make the organization less accountable,
more corrupt, and
even more resistent to reforms than it is now. The
redistribution of such
vast amounts of money would require bureaucratic
machinery of
unprecedented scale.
A tax intended to redistribute
wealth would not accomplish that goal
because most of the money would
merely by used to entrench and enrich
corrupt regimes that stay in power
by keeping their citizens poor,
unhealthy, and under-educated. The UN's
own "oil for food" program for
Iraq demonstrates how ingeneously money can
be diverted from its intended
purpose, the amounts so lucrative as to
encourage the complicity of
France, Germany and Russia.
The problem
of corruption is so pervasive around the world that the UN
even
acknowledges it in various documents, including the ambitious plan
outlined in the Monterrey Consensus issued in March 2002, which among
other things calls for the "eradication of poverty" through an inclusive
and equitable global economic system. That report admitted, however,
"Corruption is a serious barrier to effective resource mobilization and
allocation, and diverts resources away from activities that are vital for
poverty eradication and economic and sustainable development."
The
United Nations Commission on the Private Sector and Development notes
that
developing countries have $9.4 trillion "in private financial assets
that
cannot be fully mobilized because of corruption and inadequate legal
protection for property and contracts."
Take the impoverished
country of Angola, for example... The World Bank's
Cost of Doing Business
survey estimates that starting a business in Angola
requires $5,531. This
equates to more than eight times the per capita
income there. By
comparison, starting a business in New Zealand requires
about $28, which
is far less than 1% of per capita income.
In the four years since the
27-year civil war ended, Angola is still in
the grip of rampant
corruption. While the country's immense oil wealth is
finally contributing
to economic growth, the International Monetary Fund
says the long term
outlook for the economy is still "subject to
significant
risks."
Angola is actually better off than than 60 other countries,
which
demonstrates the magnitude of the corruption problem around the
globe and
the poverty it spawns.
While fighting corruption is a
stated "priority" of the UN, there seems to
be no plan in place to deal
with such dysfunctional states. If the United
States returned from
primitive Somolia battered and beaten after
projecting enormous power and
resouces there, ostensibly for the purpose
of "nation building," what
chance does the United Nations have anywhere
else?
Finally, and
perhaps most pernicious of all, any tax that is implemented
sets a
precendent that encourages more taxes. Ruby van der Wekken of the
Helsinki-based Network Institute for Global Democratisation (NIGD), which
favors giving the UN tax authority, noted in 2002 that once one tax is in
place, "other forms of global taxation could easily be set up."
In
fact, one UN paper proposes that the tax rate on currency transactions
start at "an extremely low rate" to get initial buy-in from rich countries
and then be increased incrementally over time so as to dampen opposition
against further tax hikes.
We could even expect "temporary" taxes,
justified to mitigate the global
impact of a natural disaster, or even a
man-made catastrophe like a
monetary crisis, whether real or engineered.
If the history of our own
country is any indication, we could even expect
those temporary taxes to
become permanent and diverted to purposes not
originally intended.
The end game
The power to tax brings with
it the power to destroy and well as the power
to build. Giving the United
Nations the power to decide who gets what and
when invites corruption. And
with an independent source of funding, the UN
would become a world power
to be reckoned with.
World government would not be far behind. What if
some countries submit
themselves to UN administration in order to become
qualified to receive
financial aid that is not forthcoming from any other
source? A corrupt
dictator might see the UN as a ready source of cash and
just hand over his
country for administration by the UN. Or a hoplessly
impoverished country
might see the cash-rich UN as its only chance for a
better future.
Why would the UN go along with such scenarios? To
demonstrate the wisdom
of world government through "proof of concept" and
talk up the idea until
it achieves mainstream acceptance. With a system of
global taxes, it would
have the funds to set this process into
motion.
Americans have good reason to eye the United Nations with
suspicion. Its
dismal track record in dispute resolution and armed
intervention speaks
for itself, to say nothing of its tendency toward
corruption. Allowing
this organization to implement global taxes of any
kind will make problems
everywhere worse, not better, and stimulate the
growth of new problems
that may not be solvable through mere
negotiation.
A few in Congress understand what's at stake. According to
Congressman Ron
Paul (R-TX), "The UN continues to build the foundation for
global
government, and a worldwide tax is the key to their entire agenda.
The UN
has established a system of international laws and international
courts;
now it needs an enforcement mechanism in the form of an
international
army. If UN bureaucrats succeed in creating a worldwide tax,
they will
become totally unaccountable to national governments and their
citizens."
Others in Congress have come out against the UN tax scheme,
but the
secrecy with which the Bush Administration has been pursuing the
expansion
of NAFTA toward a North American Union -- with its subordination
of our
sovereignty to international commissions, tribunals and courts --
indicates a preference for all things global.
A UN tax is by no
means a dead issue, despite what those in Congress may
say, how loudly
they say it and how frequently they say it. Such
assurances ring hollow
because Congress long ago abdicated its "checks and
balances"
responsibilities to the Executive Branch. It may never get them
back, no
matter how great the cause.
----
Nathan Muller is co-founder of
For the Cause and the author of 26 books
and numerous articles on
political, regulatory, legal, management and
technology issues. He is a
frequent speaker at seminars and other events.
He can be reached at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Permission to reproduce this article in whole or
in part is granted,
providing that credit is given to the author and For
the Cause -
www.forthecause.us - is cited as the source.
---- end
----
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Linda Muller - For The Cause
http://www.forthecause.us
http://www.wehategringos.com
http://www.buchanan.org
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Vicky Davis
"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do
everything, but I
can do
something. And because I cannot do everything, I will
not refuse to do
the something that I can do. What I can do,
I should do. And what I
should do, by the grace of God,
I will do." ~ Edward Everett
Hale
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