3 comments

[ 87.5 ms ] story [ 185 ms ] thread
Instructive is a bar chart in the middle of the article that shows the amounts of money NATO member countries were expected to pay vs. the lesser amount they do pay (with the exception of the US, UK, Greece, and smaller states).

Our infrastructure is falling apart in the US (the NYC subways system had a large article in the NYTimes last week showing a dramatic increase in the number of stoppages and far fewer miles traveled before a problem) in only the past few years.

Really, really tired of the US subsidizing the world. Time to take care of our own.

What's interesting is that this is not a new issue, nor is it the first time it has been raised (see http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/08/news/nato-summit-spending-co... from last year), yet Trump is apparently the bad guy for mentioning it.

I think a very spirited debate can be held over the need for the United States to spend as much as it does on national defense, but I'm hard-pressed to imagine how one can defend the financial dereliction by many of our NATO allies.

The question to ask is whose interests are being served? Why has the United States funded NATO for so long? Like you say, it's not like this is a new issue. So what's changed?