IMF boss Lagarde´s climate change message: US taxpayers should pay more

Christine Lagarde does not pay any taxes  herself,  but  she  thinks  others  should pay much more!

The lady is at it again!


The other day the IMF boss Catherine Lagarde - the world´s best paid female politician, with annual tax free earnings of more than $550,000 - caused international outrage, when she suggested that beleaguered Greeks might do well to pay their taxes.


Now the same Lagarde is demanding tax rises for US and other western taxpayers in order to transfer huge sums of money to "developing countries" (mostly run by corrupt authoritarian governments) in order to fight (bogus) global warming projects: 

Getting the prices right means using fiscal policy to make sure that the harm we do is reflected in the prices we pay. I am thinking about environmental taxes or emissions trading systems under which governments issue—and preferably sell—pollution rights. It is basically a variation of the old mantra: “you break it, you buy it”.

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... in these difficult budgetary times, countries need revenue and these kinds of tax or tax-like instruments can deliver. In the United States, for example, a carbon tax of about $25 per ton of CO2—which would add 22 cents to a gallon of gasoline—could bring in about 1 percent of GDP, or over $1 trillion over a decade. Charges on international aviation and maritime emissions would raise about a quarter of the $100 billion needed for climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries—resources that developed countries have committed to mobilize by 2020.

Lagarde´s speechwriter had added this poetic ending to her speech, which apparently was intended to move the audience at the Washington DC Center for Global Development to tears: 

Once again, Wangari Maathai said it best: “We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own—indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life.”

We all belong to this larger family of life. Rich nations and poor nations. Economists, environmentalists, and social policymakers. Public sector, private sector, civil society, and international organizations. We must all come together and work together.

For in the end, we all share the same goal—to make this small planet we call our home a better place for this generation and for generations to come.

Well, US taxpayers are certainly making it easier for Mme Lagarde to embrace "the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder" by paying almost 20% of her huge wage and benefit package, worth more than American president Barack Obama earns from the United States government. (The US share of IMF funding is close to 20%).


The question US taxpayers - and politicians - should ask themselves: Why on earth keep on financing a life in luxury for this French lady, who is reciprocating with demands of higher taxes for ordinary citizens?