Richard K. Armey: “today the President called for a further expansion of the International Monetary Fund. He repeated the audacious request…”

“today the President called for a further expansion of the International Monetary Fund. He repeated the audacious request that Congress provide $18 billion to the IMF with no conditions and without first requiring IMF reform. It is time for some presidential accountability, Mr. Speaker, in this area as well as others. We need to recognize that it was the Clinton administration's own policies that accelerated the financial collapse overseas that is threatening the United States' economy today. For Congress to simply endorse those policies through the full funding of an unreformed IMF would be recklessly irresponsible. If the President will not, or, as yet another consequence of his diminished leadership, cannot bring about real changes in international financial institutions, then Congress must supply leadership in his place. The IMF proposal actually illuminates a major policy departure that has developed largely unnoticed by Congress, the press and the public. Unnoticed, that is, until it was too late. I call it the Clinton Doctrine. It is a policy under which virtually any groupings of bankruptcies anywhere in the world is eligible for a bailout by American taxpayers. This has inflamed what economists call "moral hazard". By covering bad investments, the administration has encouraged irresponsible behavior. The financial disasters overseas are in large part a direct consequence of this "moral hazard".”