It speaks volumes about the mindset of UN top management that Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has just delivered himself of his most articulate statement since he took office — and the gist of it was to insult America, the UN’s biggest sugar-daddy, as a “deadbeat.”
Ban was in Washington, following up a mutual back-patting session with President Obama by complaining to members of Congress that the U.S. is behind on its dues. Bear in mind that the assessed dues paid by the U.S., which come to 22% of Ban’s record-breaking core budget, are the biggest share paid by any of the UN’s 192 member states — and monumentally more than most. Bear in mind that those dues are just a small fraction of the billions upon billions that the U.S. actually forks over every year to the UN in the form of additional funds — including voluntary contributions, support for UN agencies, special programs, donations to emergency appeals, peacekeeping and whatnot. Bear in mind that while American taxpayers have been tightening their belts, the UN has been demanding and spending their money at record-breaking rates.
Plus, to keep Ban comfortable as he formulates his complaints, America provides the frill of lavish living quarters in midtown Manhattan for the tax-exempt Ban Ki-Moon himself. Then there’s the landmark UN headquarters now undergoing an extravagant $2 billion renovation for which America taxpayers are likely to foot most of the bill (granted, that doesn’t do much for the cause of world poverty, but it certainly does enhance the ample comforts of the UN bureaucracy — Ban included — in New York).
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Ms. Rosett, a Foreign Policy Fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum, a columnist of Forbes and a blogger for PJMedia, is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.
