Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) has introduced a bill aimed at barring members of Congress from profiting directly off of war and military campaigns as a regional war threatens to break out in the Middle East, with the U.S. and other Western nations bombing and seeking to destabilize a number of countries in the region.
Tlaib’s bill would ban members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from trading and owning stocks in defense contractors. The aim, she says, is for lawmakers to make decisions on subjects with dire consequences — like war and mass slaughter — without being motivated by their own profits.
Congressional trading in the military and defense industry rose in 2023, according to Capitol Trades, with Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the continued war on Ukraine. In all, Capitol Trades recorded 96 transactions related to defense by members of Congress last year as they negotiated foreign military funding bills and passed a record-high military budget of $886 billion, about half of which goes toward defense contractors. In years past, other reports have found that there are dozens of lawmakers in Congress who trade such stocks and sit on committees that are directly tasked with overseeing military or defense industry policy.
“My colleagues continue to funnel billions of American tax dollars to the very same defense contractors that many of them are invested in and taking campaign donations from,” Tlaib said in a statement. “It is shameful that some of my colleagues are profiting financially when they vote to support wars and weapons manufacturing. Members of Congress should not be able to use their positions of power to get rich from defense contractors while voting to pass more funding to bomb innocent civilians.”
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) is a cosponsor of the bill. It has also been endorsed by roughly two dozen progressive and advocacy organizations, including 350.org and Public Citizen, as well as a number of groups currently organizing against Israel’s razing of Gaza like Jewish Voice for Peace Action, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
This is too specific. Just pass a law that enforces something akin to the insider trading laws for corporate officers. It’s astonishing that lawmakers can profit from any laws they pass.
Why congress critters and immediate financial beneficiaries are allowed to buy anything but index funds and possibly ETFs is beyond me.
