Your tax dollars pay for a lot more military than the Europeans do.
That WE pay (or more) for THEIR military.
The more nuanced question is if the resulting power + influence is worth the cost for the US.
[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/03/nato-spending-2017.html
To then simply conclude that the US spends '70% of NATO defense spending' is incorrect since you inflate it with cost for defending a lot of territories outside of NATOs scope.
Of course the US pays more in total, but the EU doesn't have 700 military bases outside of the EU.
Very different situation than Europe.
The US puts the military where it wants to because it serves the US's interest. Don't believe for a second that it's to "protect Europe."
Does this serve US interests? Unquestionably. That doesn't invalidate my statement.
The USA doesn't fund NATO. Funding for NATO comes from all member organizations. All member organizations provide troops and materiel for joint operations.
The US spends "all the money on defense" because it's a fantastic government jobs program for mostly white folks.
The US has bases around the world to influence local politics. The idea that it's to protect those countries is simplistic at best.
The NATO direct budget is paid 22% by the US, 14% by Germany, 10% by the UK. The rest of the contributions are all less than 10% of the budget. So yes, the US does fund NATO, both with direct and indirect costs. The EU can afford to not spend money on their defense because we exist, and because we base our assets there.
Influencing local politics is not the primary reason for having bases located remotely, in many cases it doesn't even happen. The idea that we put them there to "influence local politics" is actually the simplistic explanation that really doesn't begin to describe how the world works. The US presence in Germany has nothing to do with influencing anything in Germany, the US presence in Korea has nothing to do with influencing Korea, the US presence in Spain has nothing to do with influencing Spain, etc.
It's not because they want to reduce the amount of influence the former USSR and China could exert.
We clearly have very different world views. I'd suggest we end this here.
We have the military to do it, and somebody has to hold off USSR aggression since the countries who should be doing it won't spend the money on their own defense to do it (I used USSR purposely -- we really shouldn't be in Germany anymore as that threat really doesn't exist, at least in the form it did, anymore).
That's part of the issue with NATO. NATO has become a code for saying the US will spend the money to do it.
Korea was to stop the spread of communism in SE Asia, and we're still there to do exactly that -- again, we shouldn't have to be there anymore, but who has the money to spend on defense? We do, so we do it.
But that’s not what OP said. He/she is speaking in absolutes: “Our tax dollars pay for more of their military than they do...” it helps no one and I wanted to call them out on their lie.
A country does not benefit having another country occupying their land. Germany is the fourth manufacturer of weapons of the world, they do not need to be defended or protected like the world "umbrella" implies, they can do it on their own.
If the Germans-Europeans had to pay for all the cost involved in the occupation there will be no reason to have the US army on Europe's land.