Outlawing Competition Between Nations

Joel Mowbray has a piece on Townhall.Com today about a curious bit of European doublethink. According to the piece, the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), based in Paris, is calling upon nations with relatively low tax rates (like the U.S.A.) to raise taxes in order to avoid competing with high-tax nations (like France). Their premise seems to be that it is unfair to be so competitive in the global marketplace, when French politicians have to keep taxes high in order to pay for their massive social programs.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which receives some $50 million annually from U.S. taxpayers, has for six years pushed for eliminating what it calls “harmful tax competition”—which can be best described as any policy that undermines the ability of welfare states like France, Belgium, and Germany to maintain extraordinarily high tax rates...The stated goal of this project is to stamp out so-called “tax havens”—jurisdictions that have appealing tax and privacy laws, and thus attract investment capital and business from high-tax regions, primarily European welfare states. The OECD even has a blacklist, and has threatened these jurisdictions with financial protectionism.

Amazing. Apparently, we are paying tax-payer money to an organization which only exists to demand that the U.S. confiscate more tax-payer money. Then again, that is pretty much what Congress seems to be, some days. Sigh.