Center for Freedom and Prosperity
For Immediate Release
Monday, January 9, 2017
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
CF&P Letter Calls on Congress to
Include OECD with UN Defunding Effort
(Washington, D.C., Monday, January 9, 2017) The Center for Freedom and Prosperity (CF&P) today released an open letter to members of Congress calling for the inclusion of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in discussions regarding the funding of international organizations.
Link to the letter:
http://freedomandprosperity.org/files/OECD/OECD_defunding_letter_01-2017.pdf
Citing the organization’s steady drift away from its core mission, the letter from CF&P President Andrew Quinlan makes the case that OECD funding no longer serves the interests of American taxpayers. Full text of the letter:
January 9, 2017
Dear Senators and Representatives:
Congress is considering a much-needed look at the use of American taxpayer funds to support international organizations that repeatedly work against the interests of the United States and the taxpaying public. While that effort is currently focused primarily on the United Nations, it should be expanded to also cover the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The OECD was founded to serve as a tool for lowering trade barriers and other obstacles to the free market erected by governments. Thanks to decades of mission creep, however, the OECD today often works against those original goals and the best interests of the United States. It aims instead to advance the interests of finance ministers and tax collectors from European welfare states whatever the cost to the global economy. For instance, the OECD has long fought to limit tax competition, with the most recent example being the massive BEPS tax grab widely understood to be aimed at U.S.-headquartered multinationals.
To make matters worse, the organization has become increasingly politicized. Not only did several top officials weigh in on the U.S. presidential campaign with critical comments toward then-candidate Donald Trump, but the organization has for years recommended policies in the U.S. designed to grow government and advance the agenda of the left. These include encouraging adoption of a VAT and other tax increases, supporting big government-style healthcare, endorsing Keynesian-style “stimulus” spending binges, and advocating for cap-and-trade regulations, among other positions.
For these reasons, a broad coalition of free market and taxpayer protection organizations has in the past called on Congress to cut off OECD funding. Congress should make clear that it is wrong to ask American taxpayers to subsidize any organization whose work is fundamentally partisan and counter to the interests of the American public, and should expand its current inquiry to include taxpayer subsidies to the OECD.
Sincerely,
Andrew F. Quinlan
President, Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Attached to the letter
“OECD Subsides are Against U.S. Interests,” Libertas Study, CF&P.
http://freedomandprosperity.org/files/Libertas/OECD%20Libertas%202012-02.pdf
Coalition for Tax Competition Letter On Defunding OECD, May 12, 2016. http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/files/OECD/ctc-OECDFundingBEPS-2016-05-12.pdf
The Center for Freedom & Prosperity is a Washington, DC-based think-tank dedicated to the promotion of tax competition, financial privacy, and fiscal sovereignty. Since its founding in 2000, CF&P has led the opposition to the OECD’s ongoing war against tax competition, from its “Harmful Tax Competition” paper, the blacklists and bullying of low-tax jurisdictions, its efforts to eliminate financial privacy, and now its BEPS tax-grab against U.S. businesses.
For additional comments:
Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, andy@freedomandprosperity.org
Brian Garst, Dir. of Policy and Communications, can be reached at bgarst@freedomandprosperity.org
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