[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 160 (Thursday, November 13, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S12660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     FUNDING FOR THE UNITED NATIONS

 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I want to express my 
disappointment that--due to compromises made during negotiations over 
three separate conference reports, the Foreign Operations 
Appropriations bill for FY 1998, the Commerce, Justice, State 
Appropriations bill for FY 1998, and the State Department Authorization 
Act for FY 1998-99--conferees were forced to trade away authorization 
and appropriations that would have cleared existing U.S. debt to the 
United Nations. As the Senate adjourns for the holiday recess, only a 
fraction of the $900 million in arrears payments that was originally 
proposed by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on which I serve 
was included in the CJS appropriations bill.
  Mr. President, what this means is that we will still be in 
substantial debt to the United Nations.
  Mr. President, the United Nations is not a perfect organization. I 
certainly have some real concerns about the size and extent of the UN 
bureaucracy, for example. Just as with any organization this big, we 
must be on guard against possible mismanagement or abuse, and certainly 
the U.N. system has had its share of both.
  But at the same time, I think that U.S. participation in the United 
Nations--with all the benefits and costs that membership implies--is an 
indispensable tool in this country's foreign policy bag. When it 
operates effectively, the United Nations provides a framework to serve 
U.S. interests at the same time that it achieves economies of scale.
  Just this week, Mr. President, the United States is working within 
the U.N. structure to assert a united front against the flagrant abuses 
of international law exercised by Iraq in recent weeks. Mr. President, 
if nothing else, the crisis in Iraq aptly demonstrates the value of the 
United Nations to our country.
  I would make a similar point about the role the United Nations plays 
in peacekeeping operations. U.N. forces have participated in more than 
40 peacekeeping operations around the world since 1948. Members of this 
body may have disagreements over whether or not each and every one of 
those was necessary, but when you look at places where the U.N. has 
been instrumental in maintaining cease-fires or providing humanitarian 
relief, it is clear that the United States can achieve its national 
interest goals at a lower cost to U.S. taxpayers than would be possible 
if the United States tried to do it alone.
  Mr. President, during the listening sessions that I conduct in the 72 
counties in the state of Wisconsin, I hear sympathetic words from my 
constituents about the need for the involvement of the international 
community in times of crisis. But they also express hesitation about 
sending their sons and daughters to fight in far-away conflicts.
  The United Nations provides a mechanism through which the United 
States can contribute to international security without having to send 
our own troops every time there is a problem.
  The U.N. reform and funding package that was agreed to in the Foreign 
Relations Committee was a carefully crafted compromise between those 
that would limit or eliminate U.S. participation in the United Nations 
and those that would like to see a fully funded and active United 
Nations.
  But, Mr. President, due to the intransigence of some of our 
colleagues in the other body, it appears that the moral and legal 
obligations of the United States to pay its debts to the United Nations 
have been sacrificed to serve an unrelated domestic interest.
  The compromise package worked out in our Committee would have 
gradually decreased the amount of our assessed contribution to the 
United Nations from the current level of 25 percent, to 20 percent by 
fiscal year 2001. Assuming the budget for the United Nations remained 
constant, the time line set forth in this package could have saved the 
US taxpayer at least $375 million over the next four years from a 
combination of savings from the assessments and from budget discipline. 
It would have allowed us to continue our participation in the United 
Nations, which I think is important, while at the same time achieving 
some real cost savings for the taxpayer.
  Now, with authorization of repayment of these arrears in jeopardy, it 
remains unclear how the United States will manage to clean the slate 
with the United Nations.
  Mr. President, I hope we will be able to resolve this issue when the 
Senate returns for the 2d session of the 105th Congress.

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