Freedom Line Blog

There is a strange element of humor when an international bureaucracy attempts to instruct the most prosperous and powerful nation in human history how to boost its economy.  The United States, after all, reached its status by maximizing economic freedom, not by following dynamism-sapping international norms.

Ignoring this reality, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a statement yesterday instructing the U.S. to – you guessed it – raise taxes.  The IMF statement rightfully expressed concern over the nation’s debt that Obama is growing like a gigantic Chia Pet.  Unsurprisingly, however, the IMF failed to recognize this as an overspending problem, not an undertaxation problem.  More specifically, the IMF suggested “cuts in deductions, particularly for mortgage interest; higher taxes on energy; a national consumption tax; or a financial activities tax.”

Note how closely the IMF’s growth-killing prescription matches the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda, although at least the IMF didn’t take their “all of the above” position.  Regardless, the IMF (just like liberals in this country) apparently remains oblivious to the fact that incoming federal revenues actually reached their all-time high following the 2003 tax cuts, since lower taxes trigger economic growth, which in turn paradoxically increases revenues.  This is obviously a lesson that the “international community” still needs to learn along with Obama, Reid and Pelosi, but this episode provides yet another illustration why America is better off when it decides to be less like, rather than more like, the rest of the world.