CAGW Issues Weekly Spending Cut: Trim U.N. Contribution by 25 Percent

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WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) issued its weekly spending cut alert aimed at the United States’ contribution to the United Nations (UN), which should be cut by 25 percent. This recommendation garnered 81 percent of the vote in CAGW’s weekly Facebook poll, besting three other spending cuts for the top spot.

“The United States is still the world’s largest economy, but its share of UN funding is entirely out of proportion. The ramping up of other members’ contributions is long overdue.”

The United States is the largest contributor to the UN, currently funding 22 percent of the regular UN budget and 27 percent of the UN peacekeeping budget. In FY 2009, the U.S. forked over $6.4 billion, or 28 percent of the UN’s $22.3 billion budget. These numbers have increased dramatically over the past decade; as recently as 2001, the U.S. contributed just $3.2 billion. In that same time span, the UN’s regular budget has more than doubled and its peacekeeping budget has more than tripled, growing at a much faster rate than the economies of its member nations.

“As the U.S. attempts to grapple with mounting deficits and debt, organizations like the UN should not be spared the knife when it comes to trimming budget fat,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “The United States is still the world’s largest economy, but its share of UN funding is entirely out of proportion. The ramping up of other members’ contributions is long overdue.

“Fortunately, Congress cut America’s UN contributions by $377 million in the CR that funded the government for the remainder of FY 2011. However, since UN spending has increased so dramatically, it makes sense to enact larger cuts. After all, former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali once estimated that ‘perhaps half of the UN work force does nothing useful.’”

Reducing the U.S. contribution to the UN by 25 percent, which is among the spending cuts advocated by CAGW in its Prime Cutsdatabase, would save taxpayers $1.6 billion in one year and $7.9 billion over five years. Prime Cuts is a compendium of 763 waste-cutting recommendations that would save taxpayers $350 billion in the first year and $2.2 trillion over five years.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government. The Spending Cut of the Week calls attention to a federal program that is wasteful or duplicative.