Another Dumb Idea from France

On the list of shockingly dumb ideas, turning over the authority to tax people around the world to an international body ranks right up there with sticking a fork into an electrical socket...

French President Jacques Chirac will put forward ideas for an international tax scheme that would help build a 50-billion-dollar war chest to fight poverty during a 55-nation conference on economic development opening Monday in New York.

Chirac will launch his initiative fortified by the conclusions of a French working group, but the idea is fiercely opposed by the United States.

The 150-page study drafted by the working group of experts is aimed at advancing efforts to reduce the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by half between now and 2015, consistent with goals the United Nations adopted in 2000.

Their document suggests that a tax could be imposed on greenhouse gas emissions as well as certain financial transactions, arms sales or multinational corporations.

Other proposed approaches raise the possibility of taxes levied on ships transiting key maritime straits, airline tickets, credit card purchases as well as an international lottery.

(Hat tip: NRO Online).

I'm not sure if the notion of a "French working group" qualifies as an oxymoron or not, but I am sure that this idea is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Providing aid to poor nations may be regarded as compassionate, but all it typically does is establish a dependancy on the handout. Only a nation mired in a welfare-state mindset would develop an idea this stupid. Of course, that description fits France perfectly.