John Ensign: “the history of our financial commitment to United Nations peacekeeping should be a cautionary tale. For instance, from…”

“the history of our financial commitment to United Nations peacekeeping should be a cautionary tale. For instance, from 1988 to 1994, U.N. peacekeeping spiraled out of control as the number of operations more than tripled and costs soared from $268 million to $3.5 billion. Finally, in 1994, the Democratically controlled Congress and President Clinton enacted legislation unilaterally reducing the U.S. share of the U.N. peacekeeping budget from 31 percent to 25 percent. The annual U.S. peacekeeping bill fell from almost $1 billion to around $300 million back in 1997. With the historic Helms-Biden U.N. agreement, we managed to clear up our fair share of arrears in exchange for much needed reforms. Congress later agreed to a glidepath in our peacekeeping assessment rate, still maintaining the 25-percent cap in law but permitting higher authorized levels as we worked to achieve that goal. Last year the United States recognized our assessment at 25 percent; the same as the year before. Now in a Democratically controlled Congress, there is suddenly a push to roll back this achievement. It is estimated that for 2007, each percentage point over the cap costs U.S. taxpayers $50 million per year. There is no way the United States should pay a penny more than the 25-percent assessed contribution rate.”