While most everything and everyone was closing down on Christmas Eve, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (who we really, really admire here) announced that the United States would be cutting our next budget contribution to the United Nations.

Votes, meet consequences:

Haley said the plan calls for a $285 million cut for the 2018-19 fiscal year.

“The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known,” Haley said. “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked.”

She added, “This historic reduction in spending – in addition to many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable U.N. – is a big step in the right direction.”

The U.N. budget now covers a two-year period, beginning in January of an even-numbered year.

Apparently, the UN was looking to reduce the operating budget because the United States was asking for a $250 million cut, but now Ambassador Haley has just put the exclamation point on that budget. The UN charter requires that the United States cover 22% of the operating budget. Cut the operating budget, and you cut the amount that the American taxpayer is forced to contribute.

And who cheered this move? Liberal lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

“It’s, I think, terrific,” Dershowitz said Monday on “Fox & Friends.”

“It’s about time we sent a message to the U.N., which has become a place of hate when it comes to the U.S. and Israel,” he added.

Dershowitz said the U.N. vote warrants a response, and that by negotiating the budget cut, Haley “did exactly the right thing.”

“It’s the first of many steps I think she’ll take to bring the United Nations back to where it ought to be, a neutral arbiter of peace, not a place of hatred,” he said.

Dershowitz has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s decision on Jerusalem and said Monday that Trump did “the right thing.”

And Dershowitz is exactly correct. Why on earth are we funding an organization that really hates our guts, but wants our money?

Will more cuts be on the horizon? The UN is certainly nervous that Nikki Haley means business.

In future negotiations, she said, “you can be sure we’ll continue to look at ways to increase the U.N.’s efficiency while protecting our interests.”

I’m all for cutting the UN budget to the bone. There is no reason that the United Nations deserves to live off the largess of American taxpayers and then act as anti-Semitic moral scolds in order to suck up to terror sponsors like Iran. It’s long past time to cut them off.