Without Reforms, U.S. Funding For U.N. ‘Will Be In Jeopardy,’ Republicans Warn Obama

The battle over funding for the United Nations is heating up in Congress, as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon each visited Capitol Hill this week, pressing the U.N.’s biggest contributor to pay up, in full and on time.

Ambassador Rice testified Wednesday before a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees spending on diplomacy. On Thursday, she will face the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ban, meanwhile, is due to hold closed meetings Thursday with members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his spokesman told reporters.

The flurry of activity comes amid congressional initiatives aimed at withholding or cutting back on funding for the U.N.

H.R.1, a House-passed appropriations bill for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011, includes significant cuts to international affairs spending. The Senate has not taken up that Republican-authored bill, however.

In the meantime, a short-term funding bill (called a continuing resolution or CR), introduced by House Appropriations Committee chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) on Monday as a means to prevent a government shutdown for an additional week, includes $237 million in cuts to spending for the U.N. and peacekeeping activities. Rogers says those spending cuts can be offset through existing credits at the U.N. and by scaling back voluntary contributions.

Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is due to introduce a bill within days that ties funding for the U.N. to wide-ranging reforms.

“Its fundamental principle will be ‘reform first, pay later,’” she said in a recent statement about the measure, which among other things calls for the U.S. to withdraw from the U.N.’s Human Rights Council (HRC).

The U.S. currently pays 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular operating budget and 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget – these are “assessed contributions,” calculated on a scale that takes into account member states’ national economic output.

Ros-Lehtinen and others want U.S. funding to move from an assessed basis to a voluntary one.

“That way, Americans, not U.N. bureaucrats or other countries, will determine how much taxpayer dollars are spent on the U.N., and where they go,” she said. “We should only pay for UN programs and activities that advance our interests and our values. If other countries want different things to be funded, they can pay for it themselves.”

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