Obama's Global Pickpocket Act

This was a comment at Althouse on the thread, "What should Jim Lehrer ask McCain and Obama at the first presidential debate next Friday?" But I came late to the party, as usual, and I doubt anyone saw it. So here it is on its own. No-one will see it here, either, but what the heck.

I'd like to see a few more questions raised about Obama's pet legislation, the Global Poverty Act. He actually sponsored this one, not just co-sponsored. If you look quickly at the text of it, it seems to be just some feel-good stuff about helping poor countries, but if you look closer, it seems that it would obligate the US to sign on to the UN's "Millennium Project." That official statement is more feel-good bafflegab; if you dig further, you find that the UN administrators seek a commitment of 0.7% of GDP, which based on GDP for the US in 2007 of $13.84 trillion would have been $96,880,000,000 for that year alone. We already have a foreign aid program administered by Congress and the State Dept, I believe. Taking an additional ~ hundred billion per year out of the economy to be handed to the UN to administer seems like a big deal.

This would fit in either the foreign policy debate or, because of its impact on the domestic economy, the domestic one. More at AIM: "A nice-sounding bill called the 'Global Poverty Act,' sponsored by Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama, … could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations."

Doug Ross also has a post on this. His post is much more fun than this one. Go read.