Conrad Burns: “I rise today in support of the amendment offered by my good friend from South Dakota with regard to watchdogging the…”

“I rise today in support of the amendment offered by my good friend from South Dakota with regard to watchdogging the funds that are funneled into the United Nations. The cold war has faded away, and now the world is turning to the United Nations for their leadership in solving many of the problems that are plaguing our world. Peacekeeping missions find the blue helmets of the United Nations in many hot spots across the world. However, these missions are not cheap in terms of money and, of course, manpower. The United Nations is going to look to the United States for troops and equipment and expertise and intelligence, and they are also going to look for our money. If they do that, there just has to be more accountability on their part. The United States is the single largest contributor to the United Nations, counting 25 percent of the assessed contributions and 31 percent of the total contributions for peacekeeping. As the United Nations takes on more and more responsibility, one glaring problem keeps coming up: The lack of any organized accounting system. The United Nations is an organization that is known for mismanagement and poor budgeting skills and, in a lot of places, very poor judgment. The United States keeps funneling money into the United Nations and, in return, the United Nations cannot even give a straight answer to where and how our money was spent.”