2016 FactCheck: on Homeland Security

Donald Trump: FactCheck: US spends more than NATO, but only 22% on NATO

The US share is calculated on the basis of GDP--and adjusted regularly. Currently that's 22%, compared to about 15% for Germany, 11% for France, 10% for the UK, 8% for Italy, 7% for Canada, and so forth--based on NATO's guideline, established in 2006, that defense expenditures should amount to 2% of each country's GDP. The median spending in 2015 is just 1.18% of GDP, compared to 3.7% for the US, Just four other countries currently exceed the 2% guideline.

However, on INDIRECT funding, NATO says, "The volume of the US defense expenditure effectively represents 73% of the defense spending of the Alliance."

In short, direct funding of NATO is allocated on a reasonable formula, with the US paying just 22% of the cost. But indirect funding is a different issue, with U.S. defense spending far exceeding the spending of other NATO members.

Roy Blunt: FactCheck: Did not disclose student deferment from Vietnam

Blunt said he had not hidden the deferments. "Anytime anybody ever asked me about that, I would have said I had student deferments," he said. But Blunt's office did not disclose the deferments in 2015, when The Star directly asked if he had ever received one.

"Senator Blunt was 1A status in 1969, the year of the first draft lottery," the office had replied. "His number was in the low 300s and was never called."

Federal draft records show Blunt's draft status in 1969 wasn't 1-A, or eligible for service. Instead, he was classified as 2-S, which is a student deferment. That deferment, not a high lottery number, protected Blunt from the draft in 1969.

Blunt's staff said this week that poor memories and difficult-to-obtain draft records may have contributed to the confusion.

Marco Rubio: FactCheck: Yes, Air Force is now smallest in its history

Category	1968	1980	2015
Personnel	905,000	558,000	307,000
Aircraft	15,500	10,100	5,600
Budget (2015 $)	$545B	$393B	$140B

We checked other years too: between WWII and Vietnam, the counts were much higher due to the Korean War. In summary, any way you measure it, Rubio is correct: the Air Force is the smallest now whether you count personnel, aircraft, or budget.