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Tag: economies
The Gun

Zombie Republicans Keep Making Sure That Guns Kill Kids

Right after a 28-year-old shot six people to death at a small Christian school, Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, emoted on camera. "Three precious little kids lost their lives," he said with sad resignation, "and I believe three adults."

Burchett then defended the killer's right to own the three weapons she carried onto the grounds of the Covenant Presbyterian Church, located in a pretty Nashville neighborhood.

"It's a horrible, horrible situation, and we're not going to fix it," he said. "Criminals are gonna be criminals, and my daddy fought in the Second World War ... he told me, 'Buddy, if somebody wants to take you out and doesn't mind losing their life, there's not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.'"

He's not entirely wrong about criminals being criminals. But criminals elsewhere don't have the easy access to the firepower that this woman used to rapidly kill six on a lovely spring day.

Did Burchett see this quiet, leafy neighborhood as comparable to the jungle hells of wartime Pacific? And must he rationalize sick people wanting to "take out" 9-year-olds, when, actually, there are things to do about it.

No matter. There's no making moral sense of the political zombies who take orders from the National Rifle Association.

But there are civic and political leaders who can see how rampant gun violence can damage their economies. Nashville has been a hot growing city, but corporations considering a move there must be taken aback by this latest mass murder.

Such outrages are happening elsewhere, but this one happened in a state where a woman being treated for severe mental disturbance and whose parents didn't want her to have guns was able to legally purchase seven of them, including two assault-style weapons. Tennessee already allows permitless carry, with no requirement for training. And, of course, guns don't have to be licensed.

Bills are now before the state legislature that would let 18-year-olds carry long guns in public without a license. It should be hard recruiting high-quality workers to a place where they must assess whether a fellow shopper carrying a rifle is OK or will explode if you accidently bump your cart into his?

There is widespread support for universal background checks, for safe storage, for red-flag laws to prevent someone who might commit harm purchase an AR-15. Only 19 percent "strongly oppose" more gun laws.

Very few airline passengers want to crash their planes. Nonetheless, we accept stringent security checks at airports.

It may be true that you can't entirely stop someone willing to sacrifice her own life from killing others, you don't have to swamp America with the killing machines that most anyone — criminal, nuts or both — can buy. And today's are more powerful than the weaponry used in Vietnam.

And it's not just the guns themselves. It's the worship of them. It's the politicians who send out Christmas cards of themselves grinning as they brandish assault rifles. There isn't much we can do about these people's right to mock a religion of peace, but we can easily vote them out of office.

Nashville police prevented a bigger horror by their fast and brave response. But suppose road work had slowed the response by two minutes? Are we supposed to find solace in there being only six dead?

When employers consider relocating, they may well look at numbers in addition to tax rates. They may include the number of gun deaths per 100,000 population — which is 3.7 in Massachusetts but 21.3 in Tennessee.

And as the Nashville example shows, putting children in private schools is not enough to protect them from gun violence.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.


IMF Urges Congress To Back Reforms Giving Fund More Clout

IMF Urges Congress To Back Reforms Giving Fund More Clout

By Don Lee, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The U.S. made clear this past week that it wants the International Monetary Fund to be the emergency lender for countries like Ukraine, but American lawmakers have persistently refused to give the IMF the additional financial firepower that it has sought.

That tension was evident in meetings concluding this weekend of the IMF, the World Bank and representatives of the Group of 20 major economies: Washington’s long delay in ratifying changes to the IMF’s so-called quota system came under fire from finance ministers and other officials of many countries.

Analysts say congressional failure to act on the 2010 IMF reforms has hurt American credibility and weakened its hand in international settings, such as the G-20, the main global forum for cooperation on economic policies.

On Saturday, even as the IMF noted that a stronger U.S. economy was helping drive better global growth, it said in a statement that it was “deeply disappointed” by the lack of progress on the IMF reforms. And the fund threatened to take other options if Congress failed to sign off on the overhaul by the end of the year. The G-20 issued a similar message in its communique Friday.

The reforms would strengthen the IMF’s resources and shift some of the fund’s voting power to large developing countries such as China and India. The changes wouldn’t erase U.S. veto power in the IMF or require new money from Washington, but lawmakers’ concerns about budget deficits and domestic politics have stymied passage of the package.

The inaction won’t have a direct bearing on the IMF’s plan to help the Ukraine government with loans of as much as $18 billion. The support is critical for Ukraine’s economy, which was struggling even before the political turmoil from Russia’s annexation of Crimea and pro-Russia protests in eastern Ukraine.

Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, said Saturday that she hoped the fund’s loan deal with Ukraine authorities would be approved by the IMF executive board by the end of this month.

The agreement, reached in late March, would entail some painful structural adjustments by the Ukraine government, such as cuts in its energy subsidies.

The total international package for Ukraine is expected to total about $27 billion, and the U.S., which is contributing $1 billion in loans, and other countries wholeheartedly endorsed the IMF as the primary and lead player in the bailout plan.

“The situation in Ukraine has highlighted the IMF’s unique role as first responder in a crisis of this kind,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew told the International Monetary Financial Committee in Washington on Friday. “It is critical that the international community . . . take immediate steps to also support the IMF program by providing financing support, given the sizable financing needs.”

At the same time, Lew seemed to acknowledge the implicit inconsistency in such a call with the protracted delay in implementing the IMF’s reforms.

“We are working to fulfill our pivotal responsibility,” he said, adding that despite this “major setback,” the Obama administration remained committed to the overhaul and will work with Congress to ratify it this year.

Lagarde and other IMF officials said they were hopeful, and declined to talk about what options the fund would consider should Congress fail to act in time. But given the midterm election in November and other partisan political considerations, analysts doubted that lawmakers would meet the IMF’s deadline.

“It goes beyond the IMF itself,” said Domenico Lombardi, a global economic expert at the Center for International Governance Innovation in Canada.

“International relations is about give and take,” he said, adding that it could undermine America’s ability to secure its own economic goals. “How can the U.S. ask China to revise its exchange rate policy or contribute to global rebalancing?”

Photo: Jewel Samad via AFP