Social Welfare Versus Raytheon

by Rami Derbel

  • 51.28 million vaccines
  • 846.8 thousand children receiving medical care
  • 556.3 thousand adults receiving medical care
  • 189.5 thousand veterans receiving medical care
  • 227.4 thousand units of public housing
  • 3.2 million houses with solar energy
  • 3.4 million houses with wind power
  • 27 thousand clean energy jobs
  • 227.4 thousand scholarships for students
  • 24.7 thousand elementary school teachers

Each Item listed is something we give up when we give out military contracts to companies like Raytheon.

The United States has a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons compared to the rest of the world.  The United States owns about 40% of the world’s Nuclear weapons, about 5000, a number large enough to easily decimate the globe.  The U.S. could literally dismantle 99% of its nuclear bombs and still have enough firepower to threaten mass extinction, but despite that, during the pandemic, our government gave Raytheon a 2 billion dollar contract for nuclear cruise missiles in 2021.  For the past few years, we’ve witnessed one of the greatest upward transfers of wealth.  According to Joe Biden during an address to congress “Twenty million Americans lost their job in the pandemic.  At the same time, roughly 650 billionaires in America saw their net worth increase by more than $1 trillion and they’re now worth more than $4 trillion.”  The 2 billion dollars could have been used to fund existing programs like SNAP, providing relief to an additional 1,000,000 additional people.

In Massachusetts, driving on structurally inadequate roads costs each driver $620 yearly. 25% of roads need repairs and 9% of bridges aren’t considered adequate to standard. The organization Raise Up Massachusetts is attempting to pass a tax bill called the fair share amendment that would generate 2 billion dollars in revenue for the state with a small income tax on people with a salary of a million dollars.  This yearly revenue would go towards “quality public education and affordable public colleges and universities, and for the repair and maintenance of roads, bridges and public transportation” and as great as this is, we shouldn’t need the fair share amendment in the first place. We can find the yearly 2 billion dollars in military contracts such as the one the federal government gave to Raytheon.

We are living in a moment of history where we are dealing with intense inequality and our infrastructure in need of service.  Now is the time to fund public welfare, not nuclear missiles.

Rami Welfare vs Raytheon