kenderstest

Alright, Kender tipped me off about this so I decided it's a better fit for his blog than mine. Kender caught a little blurb about the French taxing airline tickets while sitting in the hospital. For those that are interested, he's doing pretty good. Anyway, here's a funny story about the socialists in France.

FRANCE TAXES AIRLINE TICKETS TO PAY FOR GLOBAL POVERTY

PARIS - France's Cabinet on Wednesday approved a plan to put a tax on airline tickets starting next year to finance efforts against poverty and disease in the developing world.

The international solidarity tax, however, drew harsh criticism from airlines and tourism sectors.

If approved by parliament, the tax would be levied starting July 1, 2006. The first funds would go toward fighting pressing problems including AIDS

President Jacques Chirac told Cabinet ministers.

Airlines, including France's national carrier Air France, have said the measure would hurt business as well as tourism — a large source of revenue in the developing world.

The levy would apply to tickets for departures from France, adding a $1.17 tax to economy class tickets within Europe and $4.70 for travels outside European airspace. France estimates the measure could raise $234 million a year.

The head of the National Federation of Freight Aviation, Jean-Pierre Le Goff, said the tax could scare off 600,000 to 1 million clients and affect 3,000-4,000 jobs.

Despite the misgivings, the solidarity tax is expected to win final approval by the end of the year, as Chirac's party has a strong parliamentary majority.

France — which hopes its national program will prove the bill could work on a larger scale — is among the countries that has made the case at the

United Nations

United Nations for a similar program at the international level. The United States has opposed the idea.

Now the UN is getting involved too. Of course we oppose this! If we choose to help poverty around the world, we're not going to be forced to send cash to nations that the UN supports, which is usually a ragtag group of dictators and communists. I'd love to see what Bolton says about this one if it comes up in the General Assembly. The French can't even handle their own economy, and their own poverty, but now plan on further taxing their own people to pay for poverty overseas. France is basically saying, we don't care about our own people, as long as we implement socialism around the world.

Kenders adds this clever quip- "If France was a person, it'd be clinically depressed and needs heavily medicated."

Couldn't put it better myself.