Political Quotes

“This amendment would completely eliminate funding in this bill for the NATO Security Investment Program during a time when we should be investing in much-needed infrastructure projects. I point out to my colleagues that worldwide in U.S. military infrastructure, 30 percent of our military infrastructure is in fair or poor condition. We should be investing in these much-needed infrastructure projects. Cutting funding for the NATO Security Investment Program is not only bad policy from a national security perspective, but it is also not sound long-term fiscal policy. The deterrence that NATO provides now is a small cost to avoid future conflict. As I stated last year during debate on this issue, regardless of your stance on overall defense spending levels of various NATO countries, it is simply not true that the United States is paying more than its share of this direct contribution program. This amendment does not recognize the cost-effective benefit the NATO Security Investment Program provides to the United States. The U.S. contributes less than 16 percent of the funding for the NATO Security Investment Program, but 44 percent of the locations for which projects are selected benefit U.S. posture locations. If the U.S. contributed at the same cost share relative to national wealth that our allies do, our cost share would be 47 percent, rather than the under 16 percent that we actually pay.…”