[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6554]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      REDUCING AMERICA'S MILITARY FOOTPRINT AND SPENDING IN EUROPE

  (Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, today I am announcing my 
intention to offer an amendment on the Defense authorization bill to 
reduce our military footprint and spending in Europe.
  In January, the Pentagon announced that two U.S. Army combat brigade 
teams would be withdrawn from Europe. I don't think that goes far 
enough. The current proposal is only a step in the right direction. We 
should retain only the headquarters and support infrastructure 
necessary for expeditionary capabilities, and we should withdraw all 
four combat brigades from Europe.
  In order for the U.S. military to modernize and move forward towards 
a more agile strategy, we must close bases in Europe. There is no 
longer a strategic reason to maintain nearly 80,000 troops in Europe.
  Additionally, only four of our 28 NATO allies are spending more than 
2 percent of their GDP on defense. The reason they can get away with 
spending so little on defense is that they are relying on the United 
States to provide it for them. We currently spend 4.7 percent of GDP on 
defense, but we should have higher priorities for our defense dollars 
these days than for the defense of Europe.

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