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5/30/13, "What’s U.S. Taxpayers’ Tab at the U.N.?" NRO, Brett Schaefer
"Year
after year, the U.S. pays more into the United Nations system than any
other nation. Yet figuring out exactly how much we spend on the U.N. and
its affiliated organizations is deceptively difficult.
Although
most U.S. contributions come from the State Department, hundreds of
millions of dollars also flow from other parts of the federal
government. Thus, relying on State Department data fails to capture the
full picture.
In
2006, Senator Tom Coburn addressed this issue by asking the White House
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for a comprehensive report on
total U.S. contributions to the U.N. system for fiscal years 2001
through 2005. The OMB is in charge of overseeing the preparation of the
president’s budget, so it was in a position to require all U.S. agencies
to report the requested information.
That 2006 report
was an eye-opener. The OMB calculated that U.S. contributions totaled
$4.115 billion in 2004 and $5.327 billion in 2005. By comparison, the
State Department had estimated 2004 contributions at “well over $3 billion” — far short of the actual amount reported by the OMB.
Five years later, the OMB reported that FY 2010 contributions the U.N. system exceeded $7.691 billion — more than $1.3 billion higher than the previous record, set the year before. Indeed, 2010 marked the third consecutive year in which U.S. contributions had reached a new high.
Unfortunately,
the mandate requiring the OMB to report on U.S. contributions to the
U.N. system expired in 2011, and
the Obama administration has chosen not
to report this information since then.
As a result, there is no
comprehensive accounting of U.S. contributions to the U.N. system for FY
2011 or FY 2012. Nor will we know how much will be spent this year or
in the future, unless Congress renews the OMB report mandate.
Republicans Senator Mike Lee and Representative Mo Brooks have
introduced legislation to fix this lapse. Whether you favor cutting
U.S. contributions to the U.N. or increasing them, everyone should agree
that good governance requires that the U.S. accurately track and report
those contributions to Congress and the public. "
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