A few weeks ago, I nearly blogged about growing opposition to IMF funding in the US, but thought it was something of a fringe position. I was wrong. House Republicans are so enraged by Obama’s G20 commitment to the IMF that they are voting to block a $106bn war-spending bill because an additional $5bn for the IMF has been included.
According to House Republican, Mike Pence:
Once the American people learn that the Democrats are using a war-funding bill for a global bailout, they’ll know what to do. We’ll take the message to the floor and to the American people, and I expect we’ll win this fight.
John Boehner, House Minority Leader, agrees. According to his spokesman:
It is the Democratic leadership that is playing politics with our troops by insisting on using them as leverage to pass over $100 billion in global bailout money for the IMF.
Republicans are inching close to advocating complete US disengagement from the global system – UN, World Bank, IMF and all. It’s a worrying trend.
Update: Politico notes how Boehner’s position has hardened over the years.
Boehner now derides the inclusion of IMF cash in the bill, calling it a “global bailout,” despite President Obama’s request that Congress make a down payment on the $100 billion he’s committed to keeping the financial crisis from swamping developing countries, including Pakistan.
That wasn’t Boehner’s tune in 1998, when the Clinton administration requested $18 billion in IMF funding to ameliorate the effects of the Asian financial crisis.
“I have been as critical about the IMF as many, but given the crisis we have around the world, the U.S. needs to provide leadership,” the Ohio Republican told the [Newark, N.J.] Star Ledger in Oct. 1998. “The only real avenue is the IMF.”
His trajectory, it seems, is typical of the whole of his party.
