YES … BUT FOR THE WRONG REASONS
To be clear, this website has precisely zero use for U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham. And as the 2016 Republican presidential primary capably demonstrated, we’re not alone in that assessment.
The guy is a fraud … and a damn crazy and dangerous one at that. Also, the only reason he got reelected two years ago in South Carolina is because no one credible ran against him (which is why no one bothered to vote).
Graham is the U.S. Senator referred to as outgoing president Barack Obama‘s “best GOP ally.” He’s also a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. military-industrial complex. He wants to wage war everywhere, all the time … and he doesn’t care how much of other people’s blood/ treasure gets wasted in the process. Or what sort of evil we empower in the process.
Anyway … we rarely have occasion to agree with Graham. It happens, but thankfully it doesn’t happen often. Otherwise we’d need to get our heads examined.
Graham did get something right this week (sort of). He joined U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in filing a bill that would block U.S. taxpayer funding for the United Nations. Well, “unless and until” the global government rescinded a recent resolution criticizing Israel for occupying and settling Palestinian territory.
To be clear: We don’t really care about this resolution. Unlike a lot of other people, we do not blindly embrace Israel and its petulant leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu (who is currently staring down a major corruption scandal).
But that’s beside the point in this case … the point here is we don’t recognize the sovereignty of the United Nations, nor have we ever believed American taxpayers should shell out their money to support its operations.
But they do …
In December 2015, the UN General Assembly approved a regular operating budget of $5.4 billion for 2016-17. Of that total, roughly 22 percent – or $1.1 billion – came from U.S. taxpayers. Additionally, Americans shelled out a whopping $2.4 billion (or 29 percent) of an $8.27 billion UN peacekeeping package approved that same year.
These are just the recorded budget items, too. Hundreds of billions of additional tax dollars are funneled to the UN through “voluntary contributions” – totaling as much as $7.7 billion in a year (at least that’s the last figure publicly reported by the federal government).
Those amounts are insane for any country … let alone one in debt to the tune of $20 trillion. And considering the nonsense global wealth redistribution the UN is always engaging in – what do we honestly think all that money is funding?
We are paying them to force us to pay them even more.
Enough is enough. It’s time to defund the UN. And not temporarily, as Graham and Cruz have suggested. And not because of some perceived indignity to another group of people intent on bossing the United States around.
No. It’s time to defund the UN because the taxpayers of this country can simply no longer afford it …
(Banner via iStock)