In a roll call vote held Wednesday, the House recently rejected a proposal from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to strip tens of millions of dollars in planned funding from the NATO Security Investment Program, which is an initiative at the cross-country alliance generally funded by member nations.
According to information on NATO’s website, the program that Greene was targeting “funds major construction and command and control systems,” with examples for the work it facilitates including “air defence communication and information systems, military headquarters for the integrated command structure and for deployed operations, as well as critical airfield, fuel systems and maritime infrastructure.” These are among the foundational efforts at NATO, which is generally understood to provide a key foundation for the Western world’s defense against threats posed by authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia. Republicans, though, have sometimes complained about the organization.
Donald Trump himself has questioned the U.S. commitment to the alliance. Greene’s recent proposal, which was fashioned as an amendment to a funding bill for areas of the government including veterans affairs and military construction, would have “cut the $73 million increase in funding for the NATO Security Investment Program,” the Congressional Research Service explained. The idea received overwhelming opposition, with 347 members of the House voting “no” and only 83 members in favor. All of those in favor of the amendment were Republicans, with 137 members of the party switching sides to help stop the initiative.
A similar fate has met similar proposals recently brought in the House by Greene and ideological allies of hers. When the chamber considered the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) proposed to block further security assistance for Ukraine amid its war with Russia. (Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but the U.S. has provided the country with weapons caches.) That proposal overwhelmingly failed.
