[Following is a recent email from my Congressman, 6th Congressional District Colorado, to his constituents. I like Coffman. He is ex-military and a former Colorado State Treasurer. He is a hard-working congressman.]
Dear Friends,
The Cold War ended in 1989, yet we still have 79,000 troops stationed in Europe with 45,000 of them in Germany alone. Only four of our 28 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies are spending more than 2% of their gross domestic product on defense while the United States is spending 4.7%.
The reason why they can get away with spending so little on defense is that they are relying on the United States to provide it for them.
President Obama is putting forward a budget that will pull two out of the four U.S. Army brigade combat teams that we still have in Germany. This week I proposed pulling all of our forces out of Europe with the exception of those that may be located there that are essential to supporting ongoing operations in Afghanistan or are in support of the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet.
I strongly believe that it is time to bring our forces home from Europe and I also believe that we can demonstrate our commitment to our European allies by conducting periodic joint military exercises with them instead of maintaining permanent bases at the expense of the American taxpayer.
By making these cuts, along with others that I will be proposing, I will be able to prevent reductions elsewhere in the president’s defense budget that I believe will be harmful to our military and will compromise our nation’s security if allowed to go forward.
Sincerely,
Mike Coffman
Member of Congress
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