WASHINGTON, June 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. House of Representatives voted 221-184 Friday to halve the country's U.N. dues unless the international body initiates reforms in management and ethics.
The vote came against the wishes of the White House, which said cutting the U.S. contribution to the United Nations will likely delay any meaningful U.N. reform.
Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., who wrote the bill as passed, argued the other way. He said only by threatening to hold back some $200 million of the $400 million the United States pays the United Nations would the world body overhaul its bureaucracy, establish an ethics office and cut the U.N. public information budget, among other demands.
"We have had enough waivers, enough resolutions, enough statements. It's time we had some teeth in reform," Hyde said Friday, according to a report on the Washington Post's Web site.
The House threat is a long way from becoming law, since the Senate has yet to consider any kind of U.N. reform package and there is the stated Bush administration opposition to the ploy.
