Sometimes a crisis can usefully clarify things. So it is that events in Ukraine have given new focus to the Obama administration’s long frustrated efforts to get Congress to approve the 2010 IMF quota reform package.
The package has been stalled on the Hill for many months, suffering from the inability of the administration to convincingly answer two questions from Congress. Why should we care? And even if we do care, why do we have to act now?
To be frank, the administration was never going to get Congress to care about something called “IMF quota reform.” House Republicans might like reform, but they have never been fans of the IMF or quotas.
But events in Ukraine provide a clear and immediate answer to the question of why Capitol Hill should care about the IMF. The fund’s role here follows a familiar but compelling script for the United States. A strategically important country experiences a political and economic crisis. The United States and its allies worry about the influence of unfriendly actors in the midst of this instability and move quickly to mobilize a sizeable financial package to shore up pro-western elements in the country.
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