IMF Is Crucial for U.S. Too

House Republican leaders continue to resist a floor vote on a $17.9-billion request to replenish the reserves of the International Monetary Fund, even as shock waves from the economic turmoil shaking Asia rock U.S. markets. GOP ranks have been split by the leadership’s decision. Farm state Republicans, attentive to the difficulties of beleaguered foreign countries in paying for U.S. food imports, seem particularly concerned. James A. Leach (R-Iowa), chairman of the House Banking Committee, says the dawdling imperils “the security of the American economy.” Note the emphasis: It is the U.S. economy that is being put at risk by failure to help assure that the IMF can respond quickly to future economic crises.

Democrats, who in the main support IMF funding, are planning to try to force a floor vote through the unusual step of a discharge petition. If the petition gains 218 signatures, a majority of the House, the funding request can be brought to a floor vote. In that case it almost certainly would be enacted. But discharge petitions are rare precisely because success is so seldom achieved.

The IMF is a kind of huge credit union that makes loans to troubled countries to help maintain international economic stability. Many of its appraisals and agreements with borrowers are traditionally shrouded in secrecy. House Republican leaders want information dealing with recent loans to Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia and Russia to be released. The information is already available to appropriate congressional committees; the GOP leaders say they want it made public. The IMF should not by any means be above scrutiny, but at the same time Congress should recognize there are sound economic and political reasons for the confidentiality that has governed its relations with borrowers throughout its 53-year history.

The deciding consideration in all this should be how the interconnected global economy could be affected if the IMF was left without adequate reserves at a time of unexpected crisis. Those in the House who sniff partisan political advantage in stalling on the IMF request, and those throughout Congress who would jeopardize the funding proposal by tying to it an utterly unrelated ban on family planning measures, are behaving recklessly. IMF funding, already passed by the Senate, deserves a floor vote in the House, and it deserves to be enacted unencumbered by irrelevant conditions.