Matt Taibbi: Raised to think Europeans were our gentler, more civilized partners, they now look like shameless freeloaders

“Europe enjoyed its years of low military spending thanks to a prolonged period of protection from the US, allowing it to build one of the most generous social security systems in the world… Across the EU, social protection has grown as a share of total government spending, rising from 36.6 per cent in 1995 to 41.4 per cent on the eve of the pandemic… While higher borrowing can cover some initial outlays… the cost of rearmament will ultimately be shouldered by taxpayers and beneficiaries of the continent’s social security nets.”

There you have it. While in America it took an electoral upheaval and a near-military assault on the federal budget before citizens learned they were spending oversight-free billions on “climate change things” or funding trans hair salons in India, Europeans are still in the stage of needing The Financial Times to explain that in an unsubsidized country, taxpayers pay for taxpayer benefits.

Since EU President Ursula von der Leyen announced weeks ago that Europe is commencing a new “era of rearmament,” the atlanticist press has been churning copy in a frantic effort to explain what living without subsidized defense means. As an American who’s sent decades of taxes overseas, these dispatches are hard reading. It looks like a bunch of pundits Googled, “How do major industrialized countries pay for their own defense?” The tone is what an editor breaking the news about Santa Claus to forty-year-olds would shoot for. It’s incredible stuff.

Sounds oddly familiar.