The Boston Violinist: Sign to support the “Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act” and push our government to divest from war and instead invest in life.

Harris,

With U.S. weapons, the Israeli military has violated the temporary ceasefire in Gaza, killing over 400 people—including over 170 children—the first day they resumed intense bombing.¹ Additionally, the Trump administration bombed Yemen, killing children and other civilians in one of the most impoverished countries in the world.

Since October 2023, our government has sent over $18 billion to fund the ethnic cleansing and extermination of Palestinians. Each year, most of my colleagues in Congress also vote to pass yet another record-breaking military budget. Even though the Pentagon has failed to pass an audit for 7 years in a row, last year the Pentagon budget was $895 billion, nearly $1 trillion taxpayer dollars. And now, congressional Republicans are attempting to add another $150 billion to the Pentagon budget and $175 billion to the Department of Homeland Security to help carry out Donald Trump's cruel and illegal mass deportations.

Republicans are trying to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from essential programs that millions of Americans rely on, including Medicaid and food stamps… while adding hundreds of billions of our taxpayer dollars to the military budget. This is impossible to justify when our neighbors are struggling to put food on the table, fighting to keep a roof over their heads, and rationing their medication.

Why do we always have money for war, but not enough to feed the poor, as Tupac Shakur wrote decades ago? Part of the problem is the deep ties between lawmakers and the weapons industry. Half of the annual military budget lines the pockets of military contractors that profit off of mass death. Now, many of these contracting corporations have proposed taking over mass detentions and deportations, as well.²

Weapons corporations like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin spend millions to re-elect Congresspeople who serve on committees that determine military funding. Additionally, many members of Congress and their spouses invest directly in weapons contractor stocks, so when they vote to send more bombs or send our loved ones to war, they profit personally. Across political party lines, too many of my fellow Congresspeople are incentivized to push for military aggression rather than diplomacy. To stop this, I introduced the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act.

Please add your name to support my newly introduced bill, the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act. It's time to ban members of Congress from owning stock in weapons corporations, and push our government to invest in our communities, not corporate profits.

ADD YOUR NAME

As of last year, more than 50 members of Congress owned stock in military contractors.³ It's shameful that my colleagues continue to funnel billions of U.S. tax dollars to get rich from military contractor profits while voting to pass more funding to bomb people. This is corruption and cruelty; our elected officials should not be able to profit off of death.

If passed, the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act will prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from having any financial interests in corporations that do business with the U.S. Department of Defense—including banning members from trading defense stocks.

The Executive Director of Win Without War said: "Representative Tlaib's bill is a vital step to breaking this cycle of war profiteering. If our leaders truly serve the public, they must put people over profits—not cash in on the wars they help wage."

Most Secretaries of Defense come directly from the weapons industry, which has spent over $260 million on lobbying and $56 million in direct campaign donations between 2022 and 2024. The organization Corporate Accountability explains: "The [weapons] industry employed 858 lobbyists in 2022—more than one for every member of Congress."⁴

Unfortunately, the weapons industry exerts incredible influence not just in our political system, but also in our education system. Many U.S. universities have boards of trustees that include military corporations' executives, who have been pressuring schools to crack down on campus speech and suppress anti-war student efforts while the Trump administration is simultaneously deporting student protesters without cause or due process.

We can't let our institutions prioritize the profits of military corporations over people's needs. I've instead pushed for giving direct cash assistance to people and ending childhood poverty in the United States. State Senator Nina Turner and I wrote: "In a country that wastes trillions of dollars on war while continuing to defund our social safety net, we know that poverty is a policy choice."

Instead of spending more on war than any other country in the world, we need to fund universal healthcare, housing for all, clean drinking water, school meals, childcare, and more.

Please sign on to support the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act, a necessary step in the push to ensure our government divests from war and death and instead invests in life—at home and abroad.

Thank you for continuing to demand better from our government. I will continue to fight like hell to rein in military spending and corporate greed, invest in working families, and work toward a future that values diplomacy and peace over the military-industrial complex. Together, we will take steps toward the long-overdue dismantling of our country's military-industrial complex, so that we can finally put a stop to forever wars and reinvest our tax dollars into providing our communities with the resources they need and deserve.

In solidarity,

Rep. Rashida Tlaib
Michigan's 12th Congressional District

1. Israeli air strikes kill over 400 Palestinians across Gaza following unilateral resumption of mass attacks, Ceasefire shatters as Israel pounds Gaza with wave of deadly strikes
2. Trump allies circulate mass deportation plan calling for 'processing camps' and a private citizen 'army'
3. Here Are the Members of Congress Invested in War
4. Corporate accountability and the military industrial complex