Bernard Sanders: “I strongly support the Appropriations Committee's thoughtful recommendation not to appropriate funds this year to the…”

“I strongly support the Appropriations Committee's thoughtful recommendation not to appropriate funds this year to the ESAF, a facility within the International Monetary Fund. I want to thank the committee for listening to and addressing my serious concerns about the policies of the ESAF and the IMF in general. ESAF lends money to countries at concessional rates on the condition that borrowers adopt harsh economic structural adjustment programs based on supply-side trickle-down economics which has been proven unsuccessful in our country and abroad. The goal of the IMF is to promote stable economies in the Third World which, in turn, would increase the standard of living of the citizenry. The general consensus of both progressives and conservatives is that, in practice, the policies of the IMF actually exacerbate the plight of the poor, are fundamentally undemocratic, and are unnecessarily unaccountable. The burden of IMF structural adjustment programs falls inequitably on the poor. In the short run, they cut government programs that provide the bare necessities to the poor. In the long run, the countries' productive capacity is destroyed.”