The LaRouche Organization (TLO) today issued the following draft legislation, “The Swords to Plowshares Act of 2024,” as an outline of legislation that Congress should pass to address the urgent security and economic crises facing the United States and the world.
A. Findings:
1. United States spending on military weapons systems and mobilization for wars—having totaled approximately $17 trillion in the 21st Century through 2023—is far in excess of its needs for defense. If the Biden Administration’s $106 billion “supplemental” military request is approved, military spending in this Fiscal Year 2024 will very nearly reach $1 trillion.
2. A handful of large Wall Street investment firms and banks control half a dozen or more weapons-production giants—the product of repeated mergers—which depend on defense contracting for 50% to nearly 100% of their corporate revenue. Some 80% of U.S. four-star generals and admirals work for the arms industry when they retire. This “military-industrial-financial complex” depends on the United States being constantly involved in wars, and threatens world war.
3. This is a major cause of excessive U.S. indebtedness which has hit $34 trillion, up 54% in five years, and now far exceeding 100% of GDP.
4. The spending of such vast sums on military production has not produced productivity gains; on the contrary, since 2005 technological (or “total factor") productivity growth averaged less than 1.0% annually, well below 20th-Century norms.
5. It is not possible and should not be attempted, to salvage unpayable amounts of debt by war, looting, and economic warfare, or by seizing other nations’ assets. New economically productive assets and productive employment must be created instead of war-fighting means of destruction and waste.
6. Urgent economic development needs, projects and opportunities are waiting around the world—investments equivalent to tens of trillions of dollars. These needs and investments are being left to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and to the BRICS nations. Military production capacity can and should be converted and retooled to meet them.
B. Purposes:
