The IMF (gently) urges American belt-tightening

The International Monetary Fund is out with another teeth-gritted, oh-so-polite statement on the profligacy of the institution’s largest shareholder: the United States. Carlo Cottarelli, director of the Fund’s fiscal affairs department, tries his best to put a positive spin on America’s budget-busting: The fiscal commission in the United States did a wonderful job to come ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

The International Monetary Fund is out with another teeth-gritted, oh-so-polite statement on the profligacy of the institution's largest shareholder: the United States. Carlo Cottarelli, director of the Fund's fiscal affairs department, tries his best to put a positive spin on America's budget-busting:

The International Monetary Fund is out with another teeth-gritted, oh-so-polite statement on the profligacy of the institution’s largest shareholder: the United States. Carlo Cottarelli, director of the Fund’s fiscal affairs department, tries his best to put a positive spin on America’s budget-busting:

The fiscal commission in the United States did a wonderful job to come up with comprehensive and sound proposals on how to reduce the deficit in the medium term. We hope that their recommendations will not be lost despite their failure to achieve the supermajority needed to submit their proposal to Congress. In this respect, we welcome the emphasis in President Obama’s State of the Union address earlier this week on broad-based fiscal reforms, including discretionary spending restraint as well as revenue measures and entitlement reforms (most critically, health care spending). We look forward to reviewing the U.S. Administration’s specific proposals in the forthcoming budget.

The chart that accompanies Cottarelli’s piece speaks much more bluntly than he does about the U.S. failure to get control of its finances:

 

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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