The UN, a waste of 7 Billion per year.

U.N. Reform Advocate Questions What U.S. Is Getting for Its $7B Contribution

By Patrick Goodenough

September 14, 2011

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Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, addresses a press conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to discuss the U.N. Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act. Standing with her is Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.). (Photo courtesy House Foreign Affairs Committee)

(CNSNews.com) – House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen acknowledged Tuesday that legislation aimed at making U.S. funding to the United Nations contingent on reforms lacks bipartisan support but said it was important to make a stand for “the principles that we believe in.”
As she prepares to mark up her bill in committee, Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) faces mounting opposition from the Obama administration and advocacy groups supportive of deeper U.S. engagement with the U.N.
The U.N. Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act (H.R. 2829) also lacks the support of a single House Democrat. The number of co-sponsors has climbed from 57 on Aug. 30 – the day the bill was introduced – to 74 as of Tuesday; all 74 are Republicans.
The bill seeks to change the way the U.N. is funded, allowing the U.S. and other member states to fund only those activities and agencies deemed efficient and in the national interest.
It also contains a raft of provisions targeting areas such as the Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition; the roles played at U.N. agencies by countries like Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia; and linking reforms to support for any new or expanded peacekeeping missions.
Addressing a press conference on Capitol Hill in front of pictures of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shaking hands with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi addressing the world body, Ros-Lehtinen made an appeal to “get back to the founding principles of the U.N.”
“Let’s not make it a staging ground for pariah states,” she said.
Flanked by Republican colleagues, Ros-Lehtinen defended the initiative against administration criticism, including the charge by a senior State Department official last week that it was “backwards.”
“Some call our bill ‘backwards’ but I don’t think it's backwards to demand transparency, accountability, and reform,” she said. “I do think the adjective ‘backwards’ too often applies to what we’re paying for at the U.N.”
American taxpayers provide 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular budget and 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget, and additional billions of dollars in “voluntary” contributions to miscellaneous U.N. agencies. The total U.S. contribution in fiscal year 2010 was $7.69 billion.
“What did U.S. taxpayers get in return for all of that money?” Ros-Lehtinen asked. “We got a U.N. that is increasingly non-transparent, unaccountable, ineffective, biased against the U.S., Israel, and other free democracies.”