Obama: make Pentagon contractors show political spending
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy
Federal government contractors – most of whom are Pentagon contractors – are not currently required to disclose all of their political contributions, which means they can bribe Members of Congress to help them get lucrative taxpayer-funded government contracts without even creating a paper trail for media and the public to follow.
There’s a remedy for this that doesn't require Congress to take any action. President Obama can sign an executive order requiring federal government contractors to disclose all of their political contributions.
That's why we've teamed up with Public Citizen and a national coalition of groups to gather 500,000 signatures to deliver to the White House on April 2. Sign our petition below and you’ll be added to the count of Americans demanding greater disclosure of the role of corporate campaign contributions in government decisions.
Campaign contributions from Pentagon contractors don’t just buy lucrative contracts for particular companies; they increase political pressure to use more of our tax dollars for Pentagon spending. And campaign contributions from Pentagon spending corrupt US foreign policy: when there was a military coup in Egypt, under US law US aid to the Egyptian military should have been suspended. A key reason it wasn’t was that Pentagon contractors who benefit from US aid to the Egyptian military lobbied Congress against insisting on compliance with the law.
The public has a right to know which Pentagon contractors are bribing which Members of Congress. Sign our petition urging President Obama to sign the executive order.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/contractors
Thanks for all you do to help press for more transparency and accountability in government,
Robert Naiman and Megan Iorio
Just Foreign Policy