Christopher Shays: “To explain the amendment, first, this is a bipartisan amendment that is offered by Members from both the Republican and…”

“To explain the amendment, first, this is a bipartisan amendment that is offered by Members from both the Republican and the Democrat side of the aisle and spans the ideological spectrum from liberal to moderate to most conservative member. It calls for a gradual decrease in the level of permanent stationed troops in Europe from 100,000 to 25,000, beginning with a troop reduction of 15,000 by September 30 next year, and then 30,000 troops the year after, September 2001, and 30,000 the year 2002, bringing us to a total of 25,000. This amendment does not pull the rug out from under the Europeans, it does not reduce the overall U.S. troop levels, and it does not affect operations such as the operations in Bosnia or Kosovo. It simply says that we will have 25,000 troops instead of 100,000 and ask for our allies to pay more. In the past, we have had burdensharing amendments. And we have had burdensharing amendments because the Japanese pay $3.4 billion for the 40,000 troops that we have in Japan. The Europeans now pay for 100,000, less than $70 million, a gigantic difference, and yet those European nations are quite wealthy. The spending on military is a percent of our budget; we spend 17.4 percent.…”