The Market Center Blog

Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation

For Immediate Release
Thursday, January 12, 2006
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org

CF&P Foundation Study Documents OECD's Anti-U.S. Activities:
Study Finds that Taxpayers Get Poor Return
On $70 Million Cost of OECD Membership

Washington, DC (Thursday, January 12, 2006) – The Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation today released a Prosperitas study, entitled "The Paris-Based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: Pushing Anti-U.S. Policies with American Tax Dollars." The paper documents the activities and policies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that are contrary to the interests of the United States. The OECD's conduct is particularly galling since American taxpayers fund 25 percent of the budget for the Paris-based organization.

Andrew Quinlan, president of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation, stated: "For the last decade, the OECD has endorsed and pushed bad economic policies.  It advocates a value-added tax (VAT) in the United States, and it is against tax competition. The American taxpayers should not be funding an organization that insists on pursuing a statist economic agenda."

Dan Mitchell a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the author of the study, added, "The OECD wants to be a "do-tank" rather than a "think-tank," but international bureaucracies lack democratic legitimacy and should not seek to impose one-size-fits-all policies on sovereign jurisdictions. That is the theoretical problem with OECD activism. The practical problem is that the OECD's activities reflect the big-government mindset of the 23 European countries that dominate the 30-member Paris-based bureaucracy. For both theoretical and practical reasons, American taxpayers should not be compelled to fund an organization that has an anti-free market agenda."

Veronique de Rugy of the American Enterprise Institute commented: "It is theoretically possible that taxpayers got a good return on their money when the OECD concentrated on collecting statistics and publishing studies. But now that the OECD is actively promoting a statist, European agenda, the time has come for policy makers to re-examine whether American tax dollars should fund policies that are contrary to the interests of America – and contrary to the interests of global economic liberalization."

Prosperitas' Executive summary: "After decades of gathering statistics and publishing innocuous studies, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has entered the realm of policy-making. Unfortunately, even though it is heavily subsidized by American taxpayers, the OECD generally promotes policies that are contrary to U.S. economic interests. This is particularly true in the field of fiscal policy, where the international bureaucracy endorses higher taxes, more spending, and tax harmonization. These policies may be in the short-term interest of the high-tax nations that dominate OECD decision-making, but they surely are not in the interests of the United States. The OECD's statist approach to policy is particularly disturbing since American taxpayers pay more than $70 million annually for the putative privilege of belonging to the Paris-based bureaucracy."

Paper:
http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/Papers/oecd-funding/oecd-funding.shtml

PDF Version:
http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/Papers/oecd-funding/oecd-funding.pdf

For additional comments:

Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, quinlan@freedomandprosperity.org
Dan Mitchell can be reached at 202-608-6224, dan.mitchell@heritage.org
Veronique de Rugy can be reached at 202-862-7165, VdeRugy@aei.org

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Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation
P.O. Box 10882
Alexandria, Virginia 22310
Phone: 202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
cfp@freedomandprosperity.org

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