Voters hate corruption. Congress keeps allowing itself to be corrupted in a few ways, including:
– Allowing big businesses to donate to their campaigns and thereby pressure Congress members to do what their major donors have paid them to do
– Owning, buying, and selling stock in businesses. Congress makes decisions that can enrich the companies that they own.
Nowadays a big problem is the fact that some members of Congress own stocks in companies that make military weapons, so those members of Congress get even more rich by passing bigger and bigger military budgets — and supporting more wars — that make themselves even more rich.
This information recently came from Inequality Media Civic Action (www.imcivicaction.org):
Members of Congress have at least 108 investments in 16 major defense contractors, including all of the top 10 companies by defense revenue.[1] In fact, at least 47 members of Congress and their spouses own up to $6.7 million worth of defense contractor stocks — stocks that see massive returns during wartime.
Take Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example.[2] On February 22, she bought defense and energy stocks. On February 23, she publicly complained about war profiteering. On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine. There is hardly a more compelling case for the need to ban members of Congress from trading defense industry stocks.
Members of Congress know about military action before everyone else, and they can make a lot of money when they trade on that knowledge.
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A Business Insider report[3] shows the laws meant to limit Congressional insider trading aren’t doing enough. One in ten members of Congress have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act — proving measly fines are no deterrent.
Right-wing news outlets also agree that members of Congress shouldn’t be able to make money off the wars they greenlight, and the defense contractors they fund.
The right-leaning NYPost criticized James Inhofe when he bought over $50,000 of Raytheon stock days after a Senate meeting about increasing the military budget.[4] And even voters on the Trump fansite Patriots.win have expressed support for stopping war profiteering by Congress.[5]
We can’t let politicians keep making money off wars they fund with our taxpayer dollars.
It’s time to stop Members of Congress from making money off wars, and exploiting their positions of power to enrich their bottom lines.
Thank you for joining me in this important call to action.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
ALSO, ANOTHER ORGANIZATION INVITES YOU TO SEND A MESSAGE THROUGH THIS LINK:
Real bipartisan momentum is building around this issue, but we must pressure Congress to act. If you’re ready to stop this blatantly corrupt practice, send a message to your representative and let them know it’s time to ban all members of Congress and their families from profiting through ownership of individual stocks.
There are multiple bills under consideration right now in Congress that would ban Congress and their families from owning and trading stocks, including H.R.1579 / S.564 (The Ban Conflicted Trading Act) and H.R.6678 / S.3631 (The Bipartisan Ban on Congressional Stock Ownership Act of 2022).
