Senator Nelson Supports IMF Funding For Nebraska Jobs And The State's Economy

May 21, 2009 – Today, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson joined a majority of Senators voting to keep additional funding in the 2009 Supplemental Appropriations bill for the International Monetary Fund, which supports global financial stability, trade and growth. An amendment to strip the funding was defeated 64-30.

“We Nebraskans know well that trade and exports provide good jobs and a healthy state economy, and that we live in a global economy,” Senator Nelson said. “With a global recession underway, I can’t imagine why we would back away from the IMF, which exists to promote economic stability around the world.”

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In a May 20 letter to Nelson and other senators supporting the IMF funding, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Bruce Josten wrote: “While American workers and companies have been hit hard, the U.S. economic recovery may be undermined by even more severe difficulties in some emerging markets. It is squarely in the U.S. national interest to support efforts to help these countries as they confront the financial crisis.”

In a separate letter, a bipartisan group of former secretaries of the U.S. Treasury and State Department, including James A. Baker III, Nicholas Brady, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin, also backed the Obama Administration request for the IMF funding. “A stronger and more responsive IMF is essential to the restoration of confidence in the global economy and financial system and thus to our own economic recovery,” they wrote.

Senator Nelson said: “These bipartisan leaders know, as I do, that US exports have grown in recent years, due largely to rapid growth in foreign markets, including in those countries which look to the IMF to help them weather this crisis. Shrinking foreign markets means slumping exports, which could threaten our economic recovery.

“Helping other countries help themselves makes sense for a basic reason: when their economies recover, they’ll buy more American goods and services,” Nelson said. “That means more Americans will be working and contributing to our own economic recovery.”

The funding in the supplemental bill will be leveraged four to one by governments including Japan, China, and others in Europe.

The International Monetary Fund was conceived as a needed framework for international economic cooperation to avoid a repetition of economic policies that had contributed to the Great Depression. The IMF formally launched in 1945 with its first 29 member countries and has grown to 185 countries today.

Source: Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson