Comments on: Have you heard about Obama’s plan to give $845 billion of our money to the United Nations?

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:33:30 +0000

Mike: As I’ve often said, I don’t like Latin, per se. (Heh, heh)

By: Mike Carroll

Mike Carroll — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:02:06 +0000

“…He then joins Mike in expressing disdain for the U.N., as if its failures justify abandonment of its noble concept. ”
In 2004 The United Nations Economic and Social Council elected 14 countries to serve on the Commission on Human Rights, the UN’s highest forum for examining civil rights around the world.
Sudan won a seat by acclamation.
Res Ipsa Loquitur.

By: kaus

kaus — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:20:13 +0000

Factcheck.org is on my side regarding the DNC’s message portraying McCain as bent on fighting an “endless” war in Iraq. Clever prose linking Mccain to fighting a war…

DNC: We can’t afford four more years with a President who fights an endless war in Iraq. … On the war, McCain scoffed at Bush’s call to leave troops in Iraq for 50 years, saying “Make it a hundred!”

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/smear_or_be_smeared.html

By: Milton Waddams

Milton Waddams — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:17:55 +0000

Pat: Point taken.
I think the important point here that has been largely missed is that the commitment of US money to the UN was done by Bush, almost 4 years ago, but not followed through. Obama’s bill only seeks to come up with a plan for implementing something Bush already committed us to.

Hmmm…that sounds familiar. Kinda like the Iraq War, Bush commits us to it, now someone else will have to come up with a plan for it.

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:02:16 +0000

Milton: I respectfully dispute your contention that my post is “a little deceving.” The estimated cost of the bill sponsored by Obama is $1 million a year. The measure in no way obligates the United States to pay anything beyond that. Any other U.S. obligations to spend money on the U.N. arise from other laws, not from this bill. As I’ve noted, the bill is so innocuous that it passed the House on a voice vote and has Republican co-sponsors in the Senate.

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:56:08 +0000

Kaus says the RNC was only “slightly wrong” in falsely claiming that a program that actually will cost $1 million is going to cost us $845 billion. He then implies that Howard Dean fabricated John McCain’s well-documented suggestion that U.S. troops might remain in Iraq for 100 years. He then joins Mike in expressing disdain for the U.N., as if its failures justify abandonment of its noble concept. I don’t often agree with George W. Bush, but I liked what he said a few years ago: “Free nations will not allow the United Nations to fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant debating society.” I also should note that Osama bin Laden hates the United Nations, as do most of the terrorist groups in the Middle East. Bin Laden has said: “The United Nations is nothing but a tool of crime. We are being massacred every day while the United Nations continues to sit idly by.”

By: Milton Waddams

Milton Waddams — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:45:43 +0000

What I have been able to determine about the whole deal is this: The S.2433 bill calls upon the State Department to come up with a plan to meet the goals set by a UN resolution from 2002, signed by Pres. Bush, to increase foreign aid to .7% of total GNP of the world’s industrialized nations. Not an additional .7% on top of what we already give. I read somewhere that our current foreign aid is approximately .5% of GNP. This would amount to an increase in our foreign aid giving of .2% of GNP or approximately $18B. For comparisons sake, that $18B figure is 2 months in Iraq.
The $1M cost estimate by CBO is just to produce the plan, not what implementing the plan will cost. So Pat’s original post is a little deceiving as well, but not anywhere near the RNC’s.
Keep in mind, the agreement to give .7% of GNP was already agreed to and signed by President Bush, S.2433 just calls for coming up with a plan to implement what Bush agreed to.

By: Kaus

Kaus — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:10:40 +0000

The RNC gets a figure slightly wrong….sounds similar to Howie Dean saying McCain wants to be in Iraq 100 years….still a yawner non-news piece. I’m done putting air in my tires. Moving on to practicing eliminating jack rabbit starts at the stop light….

I agree with Mike…blow up the UN or move it to Venzuela…no tax dollars should support that terrorists-as-freedom-fighting-anti-US organization.

The fact that the UN which led the way in the food for oil scandal is connected to an Obama initiative even if it is 1 million dollars) is not surprising however.

By: Mike Carroll

Mike Carroll — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:53:08 +0000

There are some, myself included, that believe any of our tax dollars being sent to the UN is a total waste of revenue.

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:52:04 +0000

Kaus: It was in this fundraising letter from Republican National Committee Chairmen Mike Duncan:

“It seems the Democrats’ would-be president of the United States of America really believes that the rest of the world’s problems, and approval, trump the interests of Americans when it comes to how we live our lives and where our money is spent. […]

“A bill he has sponsored in the U.S. Senate, the so-called Global Poverty Act (S. 2433), would raise the amount of American tax dollars allocated to United Nations’ redistribution efforts to $845 billion.

“That’s $2,500 from every American taxpayer, when many in our country already are struggling to make ends meet.”

You didn’t hear about it on Fox or Limbaugh probably because even they recognize how stupid it is.