[Americanexpat]

He may well be right but a lot of American money went into protecting Germany and the rest of Europe, as well as rebuilding them after WWII.

[1rudeboy]

Help me follow that logic: because of the Marshall Plan, a German Finance Minister cannot criticize the United States government for spending more than it takes in, and borrowing the rest from China and Japan?

[jpl]

He may well be right but a lot of American money went into protecting Germany and the rest of Europe, as well as rebuilding them after WWII.

He's right, and you're right as well.

The downsizing of our government should begin with us no longer subsidizing Europe's defense. World War II ended two generations ago; let them start paying for a change.

[wolf78]

He may well be right but a lot of American money went into protecting Germany and the rest of Europe, as well as rebuilding them after WWII.

That is actually not quite correct. France (and the rest of Europe) got the Marshall plan money as a gift (in addition to German factory equipment), Germany (i.e. the Federal Republic) got it as a loan, which was paid back. Also patents that Germany lost to the United States were worth many times the Marshall Plan money.

He has the germ of a good point, which is that Germany should indeed be paying for its own defense.

Germany and Western Europe do spend less money per capita on the military than the US (where every citizen spends almost as much money on defense as on groceries - 2,200 vs 3,500), but indeed huge amounts compared to possible enemies like Iran. Germany spends 50 billion on the Bundeswehr, almost the the same as Russia (60) The combined EU military budget is half that of the United states, but it's more than China and Russia combined. In fact without the US and the EU the rest of the world does just one third of worldwide military spending.