Write a commentA reading from Matthew 19:24, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
The timeless wisdom of Jesus Christ is more important than ever as Washington deliberately chooses policies that enrich the rich and hurt the working class (and poor). It's a bipartisan effort. Forbes reported, "The richest 1% of households in the United States have accumulated almost 1,000 times more wealth than the poorest 20%," in the past forty years. The top 0.1% controls 12.6% of the nation's wealth.
While the elite ruling class concentrates more wealth and power, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) revealed, "the federal minimum wage is officially a 'poverty wage.'... as prices have risen over the last 15 years, the value of the minimum wage has fallen by 30%." Even the Wall Street Journal admitted, "many Americans feel glum: Paychecks are barely keeping pace with rising costs." Meanwhile, the EPI reported, "CEOs [are] paid 281 times as much as typical workers."
There is a reason the Census Bureau reports 43.7 million Americans are in poverty. Philip Alston explained, "the persistence of extreme poverty is a political choice made by those in power." Like the political choice to reward the military-industrial complex. The House and the Senate authorized $1.06 trillion in military spending for 2025.
The Brown University Costs of War project revealed, "From 2020 to 2024... private firms have received $2.4 trillion in contracts from the Pentagon, approximately 54% of the department's discretionary spending." In translation, five U.S. weapon corporations are the ones who profit from war. Over half of the $1 trillion in taxpayer money will go to a few corporations.
A critic might argue it's necessary to be the largest arms dealer in the world. Yet, the U.S. spent more on defense than the next nine countries combined. We spend more than China, Russia, the UK, and six other countries. Most importantly, over half of our weapon sales go to repressive authoritarian governments. "In 2022, the Biden administration approved arms sales to 57% of the world's autocracies."
When Harry Truman was a Senator he investigated the military contractors who profited during wartime. President Truman's conclusion was, "Their greed knows no limit." To demonstrate the limitless greed of U.S. corporations, Bernie Sanders wrote, "We apparently have unlimited amounts of money for nuclear weapons, fighter planes, bombs, and tanks. But somehow we can't summon the resources to provide health care for all, child care, affordable housing, and other basic needs... There's a name for all this: war profiteering."
In a repeat of last Christmas (under President Biden), the military-industrial complex got more than they asked for. Huge weapon corporations received an opulent Christmas gift from taxpayers. Meanwhile, the President told struggling parents to buy less toys.
Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
