[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6240-6241]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             U.N. TAXATION

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I was misled into thinking that we would 
be able to introduce some amendments tonight and then was told, when I 
got down, that they are confining those amendments to only three. Let 
me mention that I have an amendment I feel very strongly about that I 
want to take up first thing in the morning. I will explain what it is. 
It is amendment No. 613.
  I can remember back in 1996, the United Nations Secretary General 
announced that the U.N. was interested

[[Page 6241]]

in pursuing a global tax scheme. In response, Congress passed--and 
President Clinton signed into law--a policy rider on the Foreign 
Operations and State Department appropriations bills that would prevent 
the United Nations from using any U.S. funds to pursue a global tax 
scheme. The idea was that if we had a United Nations that wanted to 
have a global tax--they have been attempting to do this for many years 
because they don't want to be held accountable to anyone--then every 
time something comes up that is against the interests of the United 
States, we normally will pass a resolution saying that we are going to 
withhold a percentage of our dues to the United Nations until they 
change this policy. In 1996 and every year since, 13 years, we have 
had, as a part of that, language that says that the U.N. could not use 
any of the funds of the United States to pursue a global tax scheme of 
any type. The provision has appeared in every annual appropriations 
since 1996. This year marks the first time an annual appropriations 
bill will not contain this policy provision preventing U.S. tax dollars 
from funding U.N. global tax schemes.
  According to page 64 of division H of the joint explanatory 
statement, this policy provision has been intentionally left out of the 
fiscal year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill. Preventing U.S. taxpayers 
funding U.N. global taxes in annual appropriations bills has been a 
bipartisan U.S. policy for over a decade. It is very difficult for me 
to understand, because I haven't seen any explanation as to who is 
opposed to this. It was put in by Democrats and Republicans on a 
bipartisan basis. Now we find that it was left out. The amendment very 
simply puts back the language that we have had historically in the law 
for the past 13 years.
  Let me serve notice that I will make every effort to be first in line 
tomorrow morning to try to get this amendment in. I would invite any 
opposition that is out there, because I don't know of any opposition to 
it. Being fair, I think it is probably the fact that they wanted to 
shorten tonight to restrict it to three amendments.
  I ask unanimous consent that my time be extended to whatever time I 
shall pursue. I will not be more than 15 minutes from this point.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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