07 May 2010 3:07 PM
Tory sell-out alert
Note he did not say he or anyone in his party leadership wanted to claw back, or had an intention of trying to claw back, any of the vast powers already signed over to the European Union by Lisbon and earlier treaties.
Looks like, as ever, evil is going to triumph because good men choose to do nothing
Though I've doubted for a long time that Cameron and the Tory leadership have the equipment to be described as 'good men.'
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US Republicans: we don't want to sign the Club Med bail-out cheques
I give you Rep Mike Pence, chairman of the US House of Representatives Republican Conference, and Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the vice-chairman. According to The Hill, a Washington political website, they have just sent a letter to Vice President Joseph Biden (the vice president is ex-officio president of the House) urging him to oppose a potential bailout of Spain, which like much of the rest of the eurozone Club Med countries is heading for financial crisis.
What have Washington Republicans got to do with EU bail-outs? Plenty. Just remember that when Brussels talks about a eurozone-IMF bailout, the American taxpayers are by far the biggest contributors to IMF funds. Not that Brussels much mentions that: they prefer to concentrate on the fact that the managing director of the fund is a Frenchman, Dominque Strauss Kahn. But it isn't DSK who finds the funds.
So these two Republican leaders have warned Biden that: 'Should Spain request a bailout from the IMF, we urge you to make it clear that the US will oppose such a bailout, and do all in its power as the IMF's leading contributor to reject putting American money further at risk. The US did not implement the policies that have caused Spain's debt issue and the US taxpayer should not be put at risk to bail them out.'
The two Republicans had already sent a letter to President Obama's treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, calling on him to oppose the IMF's bailout of Greece -- and any other European bailout that might be suggested.
Biden and the other Democrats will have a hard time ignoring them. The mid-term elections are coming up in November, and Hill Democrats are scared. Giving the Republicans one more damaging election slogan -- 'The Democrats are sending our tax dollars to those profligate Europeans' -- would not be a wise political move.
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