i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time , madam speaker ; and i rise in strong support of this rule . 
i think that the underlying legislation is much needed and long overdue . 
i have been working to help reform the united nations since i first came to congress , and i have not found anybody yet that disagrees with the fact that we very , very direly need to reform the united nations . 
this once-utopian organization has degenerated into an institution that is largely dysfunctional and on the verge of becoming irrelevant , and that is why we need these reforms and we need them now . 
there are a lot of areas that this legislation deals with , whether it is cronyism , corruption , or financial mismanagement . 
but i just want to stress one that relates to budgetary reform and the way that people vote on that . 
right now , the united states contributes about 22 percent of the general budget of the united nations and 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget . 
if you take the last 128 nations that contribute dues , if you put all their dues together , that adds up to less than 1 percent ; yet they have the same vote . 
those 128 nations have the same vote as the united states . 
in fact , if you take the top three countries , they contribute over half the dues , and yet everybody has the same vote on budgetary matters . 
imagine a family , if you will , where the dad goes out and works all year and provides income for his family . 
and at the time to decide how to spend it , the four kids get up and say , this is what we want to do , this is where we want to go on our vacation , this is what hotel we want to stay in . 
well , that is the way the united nations works , and that is why we need the henry hyde u.n . 
reform act we are considering today . 
one of the reforms in this act would say that when you vote on budgetary matters , then you weight those votes . 
that would do two things : number one , it would mean that the countries that contribute the most money would have more leverage in making sure that the money gets spent where it is supposed to be spent and in making sure that they get the results they want to get . 
and it also would encourage some of the other countries to contribute more money to the dues of the united nations . 
one of the areas we often hear criticized is this area of cronyism . 
it is unbelievable , but the united nations , if you count the full-time and the contract employees , they have over 43 , 000 employees . 
to put that in perspective , a lot of multibillion dollar corporations do not have that many employees . 
ebay , people have heard of that , is a company worth $ 52 billion , and the united nations has five times as many employees as they have . 
anheiser busch , which makes and sells beer around the world , the u.n . 
has a third more employees than they have . 
so i think it is time that we got a handle on how the money that american taxpayers send off to the united nations gets spent , and this haphazard budgetary process can be changed by weighted voting . 
there is no doubt in my mind that the time is now for reform at the u.n . 
this organization has become a shadow of its former self and likely bears little resemblance to what its founders had envisioned . 
amid charges of cronyism , corruption , and financial scandal in recent months , the relevance and reputation of the united nations has deteriorated drastically . 
what 's more , the u.n . 
appears to engage in anti-american sentiment for sport , promoting it around the globe . 
this is a true slap in the face to the united states . 
after all , we are going to contribute 22 percent of the u.n. 's general budget and 28 percent of its peacekeeping budget this year . 
this means a funding request for fiscal year 2006 of $ 439 million by president bush . 
the top 10 contributors of u.n . 
dues account for more than 76 percent of all dues paid while the 128 countries with the lowest dues account for less than 1 percent of dues paid . 
however , among the 192 member countries , everyone 's vote is worth the same . 
imagine this scenario : parents agreeing to fund the family vacation , but allowing the children to dictate where the family goes , what hotel they stay at , and what activities they do . 
that 's what is happening at the u.n . 
right now and that is why we need to support the hyde bill . 
h.r. 2745 calls for weighted voting on budgetary matters . 
weighted voting on budgetary matters would give the u.n. 's biggest contributors more leverage to ensure that their money is achieving the purposes for which it is intended . 
weighted voting would encourage other countries to increase their contribution to the organization . 
the state department said the u.s. paid nearly $ 3.9 billion in contributions to the u.n . 
system in 2004 . 
and who knows where that money went ? 
some of it likely went to fund patronage jobs of which the u.n . 
has many . 
between full-time employees and contract workers , the u.n . 
employs almost 43 , 000 people . 
let me put that in perspective : 43 , 000 workers is more than five times more the total employed by ebay , a company worth almost $ 52 billion . 
another kicker : total u.n . 
employment is nearly one third greater than that of anheuser-busch , another multi-billion dollar company . 
as elected officials , we have an obligation to be good stewards of the taxpayers ' money . 
it is our responsibility to bring reform to the u.n. 's haphazard budget practices and the henry hyde u.n . 
reform act of 2005 is a step toward accomplishing that goal . 
the american people deserve nothing less . 
madam speaker , i urge adoption of the rule and the underlying bill . 
