Ever hear of the International Monetary Fund?

That's the outfit that tries to keep all the different currencies of the world stable.

According to the IMF's Web site, "the IMF is an international organization of 184 member countries. It was established to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment."

Now, the IMF certainly has its detractors.

Cato Institute Fellow Doug Bandow thinks it should be abolished.

Bandow says the main push for U.S. funding of the IMF comes from American businesses because IMF loans are "a backdoor method of seeding foreign economies with money to buy U.S. goods."

Bandow says these businesses would be the only losers if we ceased the operations of the IMF.

He says the IMF:

* Is shamelessly eager to lend.

* Doesn't hang enough conditions on its loans.

* Doesn't create resources, only reshuffles them.

* Doesn't aid the reform process and often subsidizes inefficient and corrupt political systems.

Some people think it's a political institution with a bent for forcing austerity programs on member nations.

Some confuse the IMF with the World Bank.

Some see it as an international central bank controlling the creation of money around the world.

But, according to the IMF's David Driscoll, "The IMF is in fact none of these. It is neither a development bank, nor a world central bank, nor an agency that can or wishes to coerce its members to do very much of anything. It is rather a cooperative institution that 182 countries have voluntarily joined because they see the advantage of consulting with one another in this forum to maintain a stable system of buying and selling their currencies so that payments in foreign money can take place between countries smoothly and without delay."

There really is a point to all this. Bear with me.

Whatever you think about the IMF and its policies, you must concede that the people there know a little bit about global economics.

You see, the IMF recently released a report that warns of veritable economic chaos in the U.S. if nothing is done to restructure Social Security and other entitlement programs for the elderly.

The IMF also had some concerns about the U.S. deficit. It says that rising interest rates could strangle economic growth both in the U.S. and overseas in the near future if the deficit problem isn't addressed.

First things first.

I think the IMF has a pretty valid point when it talks about Social Security.

What will the government do when nearly 80 million baby boomers start collecting over the next 50 years?

The number of retirees is expected to reach 40 percent of the population.

Something has got to give. Either spending must be reduced, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will have to change dramatically, or there will have to be massive tax increases.

One statistic in the IMF report really struck me.

If we stay on the current path and no reforms are enacted, the difference between the cost of Social Security and Medicare over the next 70 years and the revenue that will be generated by the payroll tax is $47 trillion.

That's a very big, very scary number. Our government really needs to get a handle on it and soon.

On to the deficit.

W and the Republicans like to paint themselves as fiscally conservative, but you know what?

The year-end numbers are in and they are the biggest spenders in the history of mankind.

Remember when W the candidate said he would hold spending growth to 4 percent per year?

Never mind.

After three years, federal spending has increased 23.7 percent to $2.31 trillion.

The result is record deficits - $374 billion this past fiscal year and an even larger number somewhere near a half trillion looming for this year.

W says he has a way to cut the deficit in half in five years. But that has been met with widespread skepticism. Plus, half of $400 billion is still $200 billion.

I am sorry, people. I consider myself a conservative, but this is just wrong.

And I am hardly the only conservative worried about it.

The conservative Concord Coalition has this to say:

'Even if spending grows no faster than the administration has proposed, the projected gap between total outlays and revenues will remain substantial over the next five years and widen to unsustainable levels over the long-term.'

Sure, it costs a lot to run a war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Homeland security is costly, but military spending amounts to only about half of all discretionary spending.

Military spending was up $48 billion to a total of $396 billion in 2003.

Homeland Security and anti-terrorism measures only cost a lousy $20 billion.

Even if you argue that all that military spending was absolutely necessary, was now the time for W and the Republicans to add a $40 billion veterans benefit and a 10-year $400 billion prescription drug benefit?

(By the way, the Congressional Budget office estimates the cost of that prescription drug deal at $1.7 to $2 trillion in its second 10 years.)

Was now the time to pony up $90 billion in agriculture subsidies and expand education programs?

Here's some advice to W and the Republicans: Stop spending!

If they can't do that, then they need to answer these two questions:

1. Where are all the conservatives?

2. How in the world are we ever going to pay for all this stuff? [[In-content Ad]]