Originally published on the CGS blog on October 21, 2011.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has taken another step in her anti-UN campaign–asking the leaders of the congressional “supercommittee” to cut funding for the United Nations.
Ros-Lehtinen wrote to Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the co-chairs of the supercommittee which has been tasked with making serious cuts to the U.S. budget by November in order to reduce the national deficit, with a laundry list of UN and other programs under her committee’s jurisdiction that she thinks could use a good trimming. Among her requests: a cut in funding for the Contributions to International Organizations (CIO) account, which pays our dues to the UN as well as to other international organizations such as NATO; and keeping in place the “peacekeeping cap” which would limit the amount the U.S. contributes to UN peacekeeping missions, hurting the UN’s ability to support these missions around the globe. To read Ros-Lehtinen’s full letter, click here.
It goes without saying (although we at CGs have said it many, many times) that any cuts to U.S. funding for the UN (a tiny portion of our nation’s budget) will do next to nothing to curtail the deficit. As my boss Don Kraus likes to say, “attempting to erase our nation’s budget deficit by cutting the UN accounts would be about as effective as cutting my daughter’s allowance in order to pay my family’s mortgage.” But that hasn’t stopped many members of Congress from pushing this unfortunate idea as a solution to our nation’s budgetary woes.
It’s important to realize that any savings the U.S. might gain from deep cuts to our funding for the UN amounts to little more than pocket change, but would significantly impact the UN’s ability to support peacekeeping missions and protect civilians around the globe, among other things. I hope the members of the supercommittee will bear in mind that UN funding is an investment that benefits both the U.S. and the world, and one that should not be decimated.
