U.S. Taxpayers Will Continue to Pay More Than One-Fifth of U.N. Budget

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CNS News:

 

U.S. Taxpayers Will Continue to Pay More Than One-Fifth of U.N. Budget

 

By Patrick Goodenough

December 28, 2012

 

(CNSNews.com) – In one of its last actions of the year, the United Nations General Assembly on Christmas Eve agreed to extend for another three years the formula that has U.S. taxpayers contributing more than one-fifth of the world body’s regular budget.

No member-state called for a recorded vote, and the resolution confirming the contributions that each country will make for the 2013-2015 period was summarily adopted. The assembly also approved a two-year U.N. budget of $5.4 billion.

The U.S. has accounted for 22 percent of the total regular budget every year since 2000, and will now continue to do so for the next three years.

Whether a country contributes less than $25,000 a year towards the budget or more than $500 million – as the U.S. does – it has the same voting privileges in the General Assembly.

Moreover, as Heritage Foundation scholar Brett Schaefer has pointed out, countries that together pay less than 1.3 percent of the total are able, under U.N. voting rules, to pass the budget over the objections of countries that contribute a combined 98 percent.