European leaders holding emergency talks in Brussels have agreed on a massive increase to defence spending, amid a drive to shore up support for Ukraine after Donald Trump halted US military aid and intelligence sharing.
But the show of unity was marred by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, failing to endorse an EU statement on Ukraine pushing back against Trump’s Russia-friendly negotiating stance.
The 26 other EU leaders, including Orbán’s ally Robert Fico, the Slovakian prime minister, “firmly supported” the statement. “There can be no negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine,” said the draft statement, a response to Trump’s attempt to sideline Europe and Kyiv.
The US spends more per capita on healthcare than any country with socialised healthcare
You’re the second person to write that, and it’s entirely irrelevant to European military spending, Russia, and Ukraine.
It’s completely relevant to your fallacious argument that other countries have social programs because the benevolent protection from the US.
The US could have the best healthcare systems in the world without reducing military spending. It only doesn’t for the sake of the profit of insurance companies.
Your social programs don’t suck because of your “benevoloent protection” (which has turned into a mafia protection racket now) but because American hyper-capitalist ideology is a barrier against being able to create effective social programs.
I feel like I’m responding to AI at this point. I already responded ad nauseum that I was not arguing anything about the US system. Now people want to use my comment as representing their favorite Boogeyman.
What I’m saying is that you can have those social programs that you say Europe has and the USA would actually be able to put even more money towards your military. Your current system is wildly less efficient because it’s setup to enrich middlemen (insurance companies).
The social programs existing have nothing to do with military spending in Europe
Your first point has already been made by others and is off-topic for the post.
European governments have budgets. With a set amount of revenue, they can spend more on social programs if they spend less elsewhere. If they want to keep their social spending and spend more elsewhere, they will have to increase their revenues. Not having the extra expense has made things better for them, and now that is going to end.
It’s very simple, and maybe people should stick to the point and not feel triggered to respond against hyper-capitalist America.