The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“U.N. TAXATION” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S2679 on March 3, 2009.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
U.N. TAXATION
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I was misled into thinking that we would be able to introduce some amendments tonight and then was told, when I got down, that they are confining those amendments to only three. Let me mention that I have an amendment I feel very strongly about that I want to take up first thing in the morning. I will explain what it is. It is amendment No. 613.
I can remember back in 1996, the United Nations Secretary General announced that the U.N. was interested in pursuing a global tax scheme. In response, Congress passed--and President Clinton signed into law--a policy rider on the Foreign Operations and State Department appropriations bills that would prevent the United Nations from using any U.S. funds to pursue a global tax scheme. The idea was that if we had a United Nations that wanted to have a global tax--they have been attempting to do this for many years because they don't want to be held accountable to anyone--then every time something comes up that is against the interests of the United States, we normally will pass a resolution saying that we are going to withhold a percentage of our dues to the United Nations until they change this policy. In 1996 and every year since, 13 years, we have had, as a part of that, language that says that the U.N. could not use any of the funds of the United States to pursue a global tax scheme of any type. The provision has appeared in every annual appropriations since 1996. This year marks the first time an annual appropriations bill will not contain this policy provision preventing U.S. tax dollars from funding U.N. global tax schemes.
According to page 64 of division H of the joint explanatory statement, this policy provision has been intentionally left out of the fiscal year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill. Preventing U.S. taxpayers funding U.N. global taxes in annual appropriations bills has been a bipartisan U.S. policy for over a decade. It is very difficult for me to understand, because I haven't seen any explanation as to who is opposed to this. It was put in by Democrats and Republicans on a bipartisan basis. Now we find that it was left out. The amendment very simply puts back the language that we have had historically in the law for the past 13 years.
Let me serve notice that I will make every effort to be first in line tomorrow morning to try to get this amendment in. I would invite any opposition that is out there, because I don't know of any opposition to it. Being fair, I think it is probably the fact that they wanted to shorten tonight to restrict it to three amendments.
I ask unanimous consent that my time be extended to whatever time I shall pursue. I will not be more than 15 minutes from this point.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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