Since Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s January ascension to Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, uncertainty has besieged UN budgetary matters. As the single largest contributor to the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets, which totaled $5.16 billion and $7.8 billion respectively in fiscal biennium 2010-2011, US dues are critical to the world body’s effectiveness and, more fundamentally, its solvency.
Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen, a self-proclaimed UN skeptic, is now at the heart of such budgetary matters in the House of Representatives, pushing an agenda to withhold or scale back UN funding in the absence of a battery of reforms. Upon entering the new post, she made her attitudes vis-à-vis the UN abundantly clear: “I plan on using U.S. contributions […] as leverage to press for real reform.”
Her counterpart in the Senate, by contrast, sees UN participation as vital to the advancement of US interests. While also a supporter of UN reforms, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry, holds the position that UN dues should not be taken hostage in exchange for reforms. At UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s 2009 confirmation hearing, he noted, “If we expect the United Nations to fulfill its important missions, we need to do better at upholding our end of the bargain—and that means paying our share in full and on time.”
UN Dues in Trying Times: Cost Effective or Ineffective and Costly?
Compounding this year’s UN funding tussle is a partisan budgetary divide in Washington cutting so deep in recent months that S&P cited it as justification for placing America’s perfect AAA credit-rating on “negative outlook” for the first time since a government shutdown in the 1990s. As Reuters reported, “What pushed the ratings committee off the fence wasn't raw numbers. No one disputes the U.S. debt levels are too high...It was the poisonous politics in Washington that caused S&P to raise the red flag.”
In the midst of the poisonous political fray, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew to Capitol Hill on April 7 to argue the necessity of US contributions to the UN’s most taxing agenda since its founding in 1945. Addressing Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen’s Committee, Mr. Ban began by stressing that “The United Nations does on a daily basis what no country can do alone.” He then acknowledged the need for “US dollars to go as far as possible, especially in hard economic times,” a goal he explained can best be achieved by collaborating with Turtle Bay, as “the record shows an outsized return on investment through the UN whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Haiti, or in reforming the UN itself.” Mr. Ban also called attention to plans to reduce the UN’s 2012-2013 budget by 3 percent as a conciliatory gesture to national budget cuts worldwide.
The Secretary-General also held a bilateral meeting with Chairman Kerry’s Committee, after which the Senator remarked: “The events that are unfolding around the world are not ordinary by any stretch of the imagination. This is a remarkable time...In all of my years in the Senate, I can’t remember a time when there have been as many places where the United Nations is stepping up to play as critical a role as it is right now.” Kerry went on to frame congressional talk of reducing US support for international institutions as “unwise and dangerous” in the present global context.
Too Much Burden Not To Share
The latest congressionally approved budget, released less than a week after Mr. Ban’s visit, cuts $377 million in UN payments for fiscal year 2011, compared to previous year. Yet while substantial in absolute terms, the spending reductions are slight considering the US contributed about $6.5 billion to the UN system in 2009. And almost all of this year’s agreed upon cuts come in the form of credits: $286.7 million from US overpayment to UN Peacekeeping operations last year, as well as $79 million from the UN Tax Equalization Fund.
At least for now, then, lofty promises by Representative Ros-Lehtinen to hold the global organization accountable through reduced US funding are still in the making. Though pundits such as Brett D. Schaefer of The Heritage Foundation expect further reductions in America’s UN contributions for fiscal year 2012, they may not amount to much more than the $377 million deal just struck because such cuts depend heavily on Senate and Administration approval, both of which see more utility in Turtle Bay than the the House of Representatives does.
To be sure, the UN-US budget tussle will continue as long as Representative Ros-Lehtinen heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee and austerity measures top Washington’s agenda. However, proposals will likely end up being less severe than indicated by UN hawks at the beginning of the year, for in today’s uniquely chaotic international environment, burden sharing is something the US cannot afford to do without.
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U.S. Congressional Budget Tussle Ensnares UN
April 23, 2011
Since Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s January ascension to Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, uncertainty has besieged UN budgetary matters. As the single largest contributor to the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets, which totaled $5.16 billion and $7.8 billion respectively in fiscal biennium 2010-2011, US dues are critical to the world body’s effectiveness and, more fundamentally, its solvency.
Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen, a self-proclaimed UN skeptic, is now at the heart of such budgetary matters in the House of Representatives, pushing an agenda to withhold or scale back UN funding in the absence of a battery of reforms. Upon entering the new post, she made her attitudes vis-à-vis the UN abundantly clear: “I plan on using U.S. contributions […] as leverage to press for real reform.”
Her counterpart in the Senate, by contrast, sees UN participation as vital to the advancement of US interests. While also a supporter of UN reforms, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry, holds the position that UN dues should not be taken hostage in exchange for reforms. At UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s 2009 confirmation hearing, he noted, “If we expect the United Nations to fulfill its important missions, we need to do better at upholding our end of the bargain—and that means paying our share in full and on time.”
UN Dues in Trying Times: Cost Effective or Ineffective and Costly?
Compounding this year’s UN funding tussle is a partisan budgetary divide in Washington cutting so deep in recent months that S&P cited it as justification for placing America’s perfect AAA credit-rating on “negative outlook” for the first time since a government shutdown in the 1990s. As Reuters reported, “What pushed the ratings committee off the fence wasn't raw numbers. No one disputes the U.S. debt levels are too high...It was the poisonous politics in Washington that caused S&P to raise the red flag.”
In the midst of the poisonous political fray, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew to Capitol Hill on April 7 to argue the necessity of US contributions to the UN’s most taxing agenda since its founding in 1945. Addressing Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen’s Committee, Mr. Ban began by stressing that “The United Nations does on a daily basis what no country can do alone.” He then acknowledged the need for “US dollars to go as far as possible, especially in hard economic times,” a goal he explained can best be achieved by collaborating with Turtle Bay, as “the record shows an outsized return on investment through the UN whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Haiti, or in reforming the UN itself.” Mr. Ban also called attention to plans to reduce the UN’s 2012-2013 budget by 3 percent as a conciliatory gesture to national budget cuts worldwide.
The Secretary-General also held a bilateral meeting with Chairman Kerry’s Committee, after which the Senator remarked: “The events that are unfolding around the world are not ordinary by any stretch of the imagination. This is a remarkable time...In all of my years in the Senate, I can’t remember a time when there have been as many places where the United Nations is stepping up to play as critical a role as it is right now.” Kerry went on to frame congressional talk of reducing US support for international institutions as “unwise and dangerous” in the present global context.
Too Much Burden Not To Share
The latest congressionally approved budget, released less than a week after Mr. Ban’s visit, cuts $377 million in UN payments for fiscal year 2011, compared to previous year. Yet while substantial in absolute terms, the spending reductions are slight considering the US contributed about $6.5 billion to the UN system in 2009. And almost all of this year’s agreed upon cuts come in the form of credits: $286.7 million from US overpayment to UN Peacekeeping operations last year, as well as $79 million from the UN Tax Equalization Fund.
At least for now, then, lofty promises by Representative Ros-Lehtinen to hold the global organization accountable through reduced US funding are still in the making. Though pundits such as Brett D. Schaefer of The Heritage Foundation expect further reductions in America’s UN contributions for fiscal year 2012, they may not amount to much more than the $377 million deal just struck because such cuts depend heavily on Senate and Administration approval, both of which see more utility in Turtle Bay than the the House of Representatives does.
To be sure, the UN-US budget tussle will continue as long as Representative Ros-Lehtinen heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee and austerity measures top Washington’s agenda. However, proposals will likely end up being less severe than indicated by UN hawks at the beginning of the year, for in today’s uniquely chaotic international environment, burden sharing is something the US cannot afford to do without.
