Thursday, September 4, 2008

2008 GOP Platform Eliminates ‘Commitment’ to U.N.

(CNSNews.com) – Both critics and supporters of the United Nations have found applause-worthy features in the Republican Party platform adopted at this week’s convention.

The new document says the U.S. “will pay a fair, but not disproportionate, share of dues” to the U.N., and “will never support a U.N.-imposed tax.”

“The U.N. must reform its scandal-ridden and corrupt management and become more accountable and transparent in its operations and expenses,” it adds. [snip]

Countries’ contributions to the U.N.’s operating costs are calculated from assessments based on their relative “capacity to pay,” taking into account income statistics and other factors. The ceiling is set at 22 percent – the rate the U.S. is expected to contribute. The U.S. also contributes 25 percent of the peacekeeping budget.

The other four permanent members of the Security Council contribute considerably less to the operating costs, with Britain assessed at 6.7, France at 6.2, China at 2.4 and Russia at 0.7 percent. [snip]

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., argued during and since his tenure for a shift to a system of “voluntary contributions.”

Such an arrangement, he said in congressional testimony last year, would allow member states

“to judge the effectiveness of the various parts of the U.N. system, and demand results. Non-responsive programs and funds can be defunded, effective agencies and personnel can be rewarded and augmented, and, most importantly, the crippling mentality of ‘entitlement’ that pervades the main U.N. organization will be stripped away.”
In a 2006 poll commissioned by the Hudson Institute, 71 percent of respondents said the U.S. contribution to the U.N. should be cut.

[even better: replace it with the UDN - the UN's become a clearing house for despots]

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