John,

Being a member of Congress has many perks, but increasing your stock portfolio shouldn’t be one of them. Right now, members of Congress can trade stocks in any number of companies―while voting on legislation that can increase the profit margins of the very same industries those laws govern.

Every year Congress overwhelmingly passes yet another record-breaking military budget—this year it topped $886 billion, with half of that lining the pockets of military contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and more.

The U.S. Department of Defense expenditures accounted for 40% of all military expenditures worldwide in 2023.¹ This is unjustifiable when our neighbors are struggling to put food on the table, fighting to keep a roof over their heads, and rationing their medication.

Just yesterday, I presented at a program titled “Books Not Bombs”, speaking to Mass Peace Action and other anti-war advocates nationwide about the imbalance between domestic spending on issues ranging from education to housing to health care to public transit vs. the excessive Pentagon budget.

The lawmakers responsible for signing off on these astronomical Pentagon budgets? Many of them have deep financial ties to the weapons industry. At least 50 members of Congress, or people in their household, own stocks in companies that produce military equipment—the value possibly being as high as $10.9 million.²

Corporations like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin spend millions to re-elect Congresspeople who serve on committees that determine military funding. Those Congresspeople should not have a vested financial interest in ensuring those companies receive government funding. A bipartisan group of senators has set the stage to dismantle this broken status quo with the Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act. Add your name to urge Congress to act now.

The Department of Defense is the only federal agency that has never passed a full audit and they didn’t even complete audits until 2018.³ A six month investigation by 60 Minutes revealed drastic price gouging by federal military contractors―with some raking up total profits near 40%!⁴

One of the biggest contractors and price gougers is Lockheed Martin. In 2021, 71% of Lockheed Martin’s $67 billion of net sales were to the U.S. Government―including 62% to the Department of Defense.⁵ And, for tax year 2023, they saw their effective tax rate cut by over half―to 14.5%―due to the passage of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax scam.⁶

The ETHICS Act would help end war profiteering by banning congressional stock trading altogether―and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs just pushed this critically needed legislation past a crucial hurdle.

Members of Congress were elected to serve the public, not to serve their stock portfolios. They shouldn’t be able to use their positions of power to get rich while voting to waste more funding that should be going to essential housing, nutrition, and education programs.

The stage is set for the ETHICS Act to go to the Senate floor, and when that happens, we need to make sure it passes with the resounding majority it deserves.

Sign now to tell your Senators to support the Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act.

Thank you for all you do,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, CHN Action

¹ The United States Spends More on Defense than the Next 9 Countries Combined
² 'Obvious Conflict of Interest': Report Reveals 50+ US Lawmakers Hold Military Stocks
³ Here’s what the Pentagon’s first-ever audit found
⁴ Weapons contractors hitting Department of Defense with inflated prices for planes, submarines, missiles
⁵ HOW MUCH DO GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS CONTRIBUTE TO DEFENSE SUPPLIERS’ REVENUE SHARE?
⁶ Lockheed Martin Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Results