On the significance of tunnel seizures, Sanho puts the numbers in stark perspective: “This is a drop in the bucket.” He notes that a single tunnel discovered in Tijuana in 2011 had 40 tons of cannabis on the Mexican side alone waiting to come through. “Once they build these tunnels, they can operate them 24/7 if they wanted to,” he explains. “And by the time they do discover them, we have no idea how many months or years they’ve been in operation.”

The $45 million seizure, he argues, represents only what authorities found on hand. “Most of it has already probably gotten through to the U.S.”

Sanho is equally skeptical of the broader enforcement strategy. “We only seize anywhere from 3 to 10 percent of the drugs coming into the United States,” he says. “I compare it to the way astrophysicists talk about dark matter in the universe. We know it’s there. We can’t see it.”

Meanwhile, decades of escalating law enforcement have produced a perverse Darwinian effect: “The people we typically capture are the people who are either dumb enough, clumsy enough, or poor and vulnerable enough to get caught. Conversely, the people we tend to miss, year after year, decade after decade, are the people who are the most adaptable, the most innovative, the most cunning.”

On the Trump administration’s push for ever-more militarized drug enforcement, Sanho is direct: “You cannot use a military solution to solve what is fundamentally an economic problem.” He argues that prohibition itself is the core issue — functioning as a price support for traffickers. “The drug war is essentially producing a price support for drug traffickers. Think of it that way. It’s a crop subsidy.” The more risk built into the system, he explains, the higher the profit margin for everyone in the smuggling chain.

His prescription is regulation. “You can’t control a substance you deliberately drive underground,” he says, pointing to Switzerland’s decades-long prescription heroin program as a model that works. “We don’t call them alco terrorists the way Donald Trump calls these drug traffickers narco terrorists — because it doesn’t help us understand the phenomenon of drug use and addiction and it doesn’t tell us anything about regulation. It’s just a recipe for more war.”

Watch the full interview below:

The post VIDEO: Drug Seizures Won’t Stop Cartels appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

On the exclusion of Lebanon and Palestine from any ceasefire framework, she is unequivocal: “There was no debate. No one was putting forward the view that Palestine — particularly Gaza, but the West Bank as well, where there is a massive escalation in settler violence — whether they need to be included in the ceasefire too.”

The human toll in Lebanon alone is staggering, she notes: “There have been over 2,600 people killed in Lebanon. 62,000 homes have been either damaged seriously or completely destroyed. And 20 percent of the Lebanese population in the south have been displaced from their homes.”

On Israel’s pattern of territorial expansion — from the West Bank to the Golan Heights in Syria to southern Lebanon — Phyllis draws a clear through line: “We’re talking about 15 to 18 percent of the land of Lebanon now in Israeli hands, and there’s no indication that anybody is prepared to say that that’s not going to be allowed to go forward.”

Watch the full interview below:

The post VIDEO: The U.S.-Israel ‘Ceasefire’ with Iran Leaves Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank Behind appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

Press contacts below

San Salvador, El Salvador and worldwide —   For the past 26 years, El Salvador has marked World Environment Day with an Ecological Walk, organized by the Franciscan Office of Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation. This event unites diverse groups from across the environmental movement that mobilize thousands of people to demand better government policy to address chronic environmental issues affecting the country.  

On June 5, in solidarity with the Ecological Walk, organizations and individuals that comprise International Allies against Mining in El Salvador joined the Salvadoran environmental movement in asking mining corporations around the world to reject the invitation from the Salvadoran government to mine in El Salvador.  

In particular, International Allies issued the following four demands to international investors and the Salvadoran government:

1. To mining corporations from other countries: Heed the call of the Salvadoran people that there be no mining in El Salvador.

El Salvador led the world in 2017 when its legislature voted unanimously to prohibit all metals mining in the country.  Public opinion polls in 2007, 2015, and 2024 showed that over 60 percent of the Salvadoran public oppose mining in their country to save its rivers.  Despite that overwhelming public opposition, President Bukele’s legislature passed a new mining law in December 2024 that reopens the country to mining with no environmental or safety protections.  

Mining companies should be aware that the public will oppose new mining investments, and that there will be strong pressure on the governments that succeed Bukele to reimpose the prohibition on mining.  Civil society organizations and faith leaders in El Salvador, including the Archbishop of San Salvador, have spoken out against mining and have been joined by hundreds of organizations from around the world.      

From researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies and Earthworks, here are 15 reasons why El Salvador should once again reject gold mining.            

2. To U.S. and other foreign corporations: Do not invest in a country whose government has been accused of torture in its prisons, and which denies its citizens due process of law.   

3. To the public in El Salvador and around the world: We salute your determination to continue to fight in defense of your scarce water reserves. We also salute the decision of the Criminal Chamber of San Vicente to reaffirm the dismissal of criminal charges against the Santa Marta 5 Water Defenders, yet we voice concern over the clause in the ruling that allows the pursuit of civil liability against several of the water defenders.

4. To the Salvadoran government: We call for the end to the State of Exception, and for the release of tens of thousands of innocent people in Salvadoran prisons.  We also call for the release of political prisoners, including the release of  human rights lawyer Ruth Lopez, who led the presentation of a constitutional injunction to stop the 2024 Mining Law and was arrested under false charges a year ago.       

Mining in El Salvador would aggravate the conditions of an environmentally vulnerable country with high levels of population density, water scarcity, deforestation and contamination. The impacts of climate change are particularly harsh in El Salvador, and this year the severe heatwaves and drought caused by El Niño are threatening to devastate essential corn and bean harvests, putting the food security of millions of Salvadorans at immediate risk.

This statement comes at a time when U.S. officials are pursuing an investment agreement with the government of El Salvador that could impact potential mining projects and critical mineral extraction projects in El Salvador, even as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has come under intense scrutiny for alleged deals with gang members.  

Next week, the U.S. State Department is bringing a group of U.S. investors to El Salvador, and we ask them to weigh the consequences of investing in a country that is mired in increasing environmental conflict, torture, and denial of due process of the law to the tens of thousands of people in its prisons, including environmental and human rights defenders.    

Additional Resources:

International Allies against Mining in El Salvador Applauds Official Affirmation of Verdict of Innocence in Second Trial of Santa Marta Five; Condemns Potential Civil Liability

Water Over Gold: 15 Reasons Why El Salvador Should Again Reject Gold Mining

Statement from 153 faith organizations in 25 countries in support of the Salvadoran people and their religious leaders and institutions as they struggle to preserve El Salvador’s historic, world-leading ban on metals mining.

She Spoke Up for Due Process. Now She’s Detained Without Charges.

Press contacts:

John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies, johnc@ips-dc.org
Pedro Cabezas, Central American Alliance against Mining (ACAFREMIN) and International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador, stopesmining@gmail.com

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Lea este comunicado de prensa en español.

The post STATEMENT: On World Environment Day, International Allies Spotlight Salvadoran Communities Resisting Reintroduction of Mining in El Salvador appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

Contactos de prensa abajo

San Salvador, El Salvador y todo el mundo — Desde hace 26 años, El Salvador ha conmemorado el Día Mundial del Medio Ambiente con una Caminata Ecológica, organizada por la Oficina Franciscana de Justicia, Paz e Integridad de la Creación (JPIC). Este evento unifica a diversos grupos del movimiento ambientalista que movilizan a miles de personas para exigir políticas gubernamentales que aborden los problemas ambientales crónicos que afectan al país.

Este 5 de junio, en solidaridad con la Caminata Ecológica, las organizaciones e individuos que integran los Aliados Internacionales contra la Minería en El Salvador se unen al movimiento ambientalista salvadoreño para pedir a las corporaciones mineras del mundo que rechacen la invitación del gobierno salvadoreño para realizar actividades de minería en El Salvador.

Particularmente, los Aliados Internacionales emitieron las siguientes cuatro peticiones a los inversores internacionales y al gobierno salvadoreño:

1. A las corporaciones mineras multinacionales: Escuchen el clamor del pueblo salvadoreño que no quiere minería en El Salvador.
   El Salvador lideró al mundo en 2017 cuando su legislatura votó, de manera unánime, prohibir la minería de metales en el país. Encuestas de opinión pública en 2007, 2015 y 2024 muestran que más del 60 por ciento de la población salvadoreña se opone a la minería para preservar el agua de sus ríos. A pesar de esa abrumadora oposición pública, la legislatura del presidente Bukele aprobó una nueva ley de minería en diciembre de 2024 que abre el país a la minería sin protecciones ambientales ni de seguridad.
   
   Las empresas mineras deben ser conscientes de que el público se opone a las nuevas inversiones mineras, y que habrá una fuerte presión sobre los gobiernos sucesivos a Bukele para que vuelvan a imponer la prohibición de la minería. Organizaciones de la sociedad civil, líderes sociales y líderes religiosos en El Salvador, incluido el arzobispo de San Salvador, se han pronunciado en contra de la minería y a ellos se han sumado más de cientos de organizaciones de todo el mundo.
   Investigadores del Institute for Policy Studies y Earthworks, han documentado 15 razones por las cuales El Salvador debería rechazar una vez más la minería de oro.
2. A las corporaciones estadounidenses y otras empresas extranjeras: No inviertan en un país cuyo gobierno ha sido acusado de tortura en sus prisiones y que niega a sus ciudadanos el derecho al debido proceso.
3. Al público en El Salvador y en todo el mundo: Aplaudimos su determinación de continuar la lucha por defender el agua. Tambien aplaudimos la decisión de la Camara de lo Penal de San Vicente de reafirmar el veredicto que desestima los cargos penales contra los 5 Defensores del Agua de Santa Marta, sin embargo, expresamos preocupación por la cláusula del fallo que asigna responsabilidad civil contra varios de los defensores del agua.
4. Al gobierno de El Salvador: Pedimos el fin del Régimen de Excepción y la liberación de decenas de miles de personas inocentes en las prisiones salvadoreñas. También pedimos la liberación de los presos políticos, incluida la liberación de la abogada de derechos humanos Ruth López, quien lideró la presentación de un amparo constitucional para detener la Ley de Minería de 2024 y consecuentemente fue arrestada bajo cargos falsos hace un año.

La minería en El Salvador agravaría las condiciones de un país ambientalmente vulnerable con altos niveles de densidad de población, escasez de agua, deforestación y contaminación.

Los impactos del cambio climático son particularmente severos en El Salvador, y este año las intensas olas de calor y la sequía causadas por El Niño amenazan con devastar la cosecha de maíz y frijol, poniendo en riesgo inmediato la seguridad alimentaria de millones de salvadoreños.

Esta declaración se produce en un momento en que funcionarios estadounidenses han firmado a un acuerdo de inversión con el gobierno salvadoreño que podría financiar posibles proyectos mineros y proyectos de extracción de minerales críticos en El Salvador, aun cuando el presidente salvadoreño, Nayib Bukele, ha sido objeto de un intenso escrutinio por presuntos acuerdos con pandilleros.

La próxima semana, el Departamento de Estado de los EE. UU. traerá a un grupo de inversores estadounidenses a El Salvador, a los que solicitamos que consideren las consecuencias de invertir en un país que está sumido en un creciente conflicto ambiental, y está acusado de tortura y la negación del debido proceso a decenas de miles de personas en sus prisiones, incluidos defensores ambientales y de derechos humanos.

Recursos Adicionales:

• International Allies against Mining in El Salvador Applauds Official Affirmation of Verdict of Innocence in Second Trial of Santa Marta Five; Condemns Potential Civil Liability
• Water Over Gold: 15 Reasons Why El Salvador Should Again Reject Gold Mining

• Statement from 153 faith organizations in 25 countries in support of the Salvadoran people and their religious leaders and institutions as they struggle to preserve El Salvador’s historic, world-leading ban on metals mining.
• She Spoke Up for Due Process. Now She’s Detained Without Charges.

Contactos de prensa:

• John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies, johnc@ips-dc.org
• Pedro Cabezas, Central American Alliance on Mining (ACAFREMIN) y International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador, stopesmining@gmail.com

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The post Pronunciamiento: En el Día Mundial del Medio Ambiente, aliados internacionales destacan a las comunidades salvadoreñas que se resisten a la reintroducción de la minería en El Salvador. appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

Foot-draggers, in other words, can reap a lot of benefits, whether as a result of ignorance (not knowing about a new product), fear (of making a mistake), or strategic patience. But too many foot-draggers could doom innovation.

Public policy is often designed to reward early adopters and light a fire underneath the foot-draggers. During the Biden years, EV buyers could receive a tax rebate, and the administration invested money into the expansion of charging stations. As a result, consumers rejiggered their cost-benefit analyses, and for a short period demand exceeded supply. As more companies went into the EV business, the United States, at least briefly, began to move away from the combustion engine.

The Paris Agreement was supposed to create an overall environment to shape such Green public policies. Unfortunately, the Paris targets were voluntary, which meant that countries could make grand statements of commitment while dragging their feet in reality. The ubiquity of “Green-dragging”—the slow-walking of carbon-reduction strategies—has produced the inevitable results: steadily increasing global emissions, the spiraling costs of loss and damage, and a general skepticism that international cooperation can ever really tackle a problem of such magnitude.

Then along came Donald Trump, who has proudly proclaimed his climate denialism. To the delight of the fossil fuel companies that poured money into his reelection campaign, the president has pledged to extract every bit of oil, gas, and coal from beneath the United States. He hasn’t stopped there. To gain access to every last scrap of extractable value in the world—Venezuela’s oil, Greenland’s minerals—Trump has engaged in truly reckless behavior.

In his riskiest move yet, the American president joined Israel in attacking Iran at the end of February. His rationales were many: to “solve” a problem that had bedeviled presidents going back to the hostage crisis of 1979, to punish the ayatollahs that have taunted him, to upend the politics of the Middle East. But he also dreamed of controlling Iranian fossil fuel assets.

Yet this poorly planned, fitfully executed, and shamelessly promoted campaign has backfired in more than one sense. Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which in turn prompted Trump to blockade the blockade, has boosted the price of oil at the pumps in the United States. And it has pushed countries all over the world to rethink their commitment to the fossil fuels that have been blockaded in the Persian Gulf. The fossil fuels that Trump wants to make more available have instead become more scarce.

Will the Iran war prove to be sufficient to shake the Green-draggers of the world out of their torpor? Much will depend on Asia.

What the War Has Done

Very few countries have insulated themselves from the energy shocks of the Iran War and the double blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. Poorer countries that rely on fossil fuel imports are the hardest hit: rolling blackouts in Bangladesh, fuel rationing in Myanmar, school closures in Pakistan. The rising cost of fertilizer—and the consequent reduction in global food supplies from such developments as the halving of this year’s Australian wheat harvest—will hit poor countries even harder.

You’d think that the countries that have pushed hard to transition to clean energy would be able to breathe easy despite the double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. But that’s not been the case. Uruguay gets 99 percent of its electricity from renewables, but it still relies on a good deal of imported fossil fuels to supply almost 40 percent of its overall energy needs. Several European countries—Denmark, Portugal, The Netherlands, Lithuania, and Luxemburg, with Spain, Ireland, Germany, and Greece not far beyond—are approaching the magic goal of sourcing their electricity entirely from renewable sources, but they too continue to import considerable amounts of oil and gas for heating and other purposes.

Even countries that produce oil and gas in large quantities have been adversely affected by the war. The Gulf States have faced enormous difficulties getting their products to market—and have also suffered damage to their energy infrastructure from Iranian attacks. The United States, despite an abundance of oil, has seen a substantial increase of prices at the pump. Although it can be considered a “winner” of the Iran war because of the increased demand for its oil and gas, Russia’s windfall profits have been compromised by sanctions and Ukrainian drone strikes on key production and processing facilities.

Until recently, the countries that have dragged their feet in their exit from the fossil-fuel era were largely failing on the environmental front. They weren’t paying the upfront costs of preventing the planet from overheating, either because they didn’t sense the urgency of the situation or they wanted a free ride on an emissions-reduction bandwagon driven and paid for by others. It wasn’t because of outright denial of global warming. Other than the United States under Trump, it is hard to find a government that actively ignores the science of climate change. Still, such countries weren’t making the huge investments necessary—at home or as part of climate justice payments to the Global South—necessary to reduce emissions.

More recently, with the price of solar and wind power along with battery storage dropping precipitously, “Green-dragging” has been economically counterproductive as well. But inertia is a powerful force. An energy transition is more than just slapping a few panels on top of a parking lot or building a couple windmills on top of a mountain. Shifting away from fossil fuels requires a buildout of electricity infrastructure, the introduction of new fleets of electricity-powered public transportation, and the replacement of residential and business heating systems reliant on oil and gas. That not only costs money but requires strategic investments from motivated governments.

China showcases the push-pull dynamic of the energy transition. It has quickly transformed itself into a leader of the energy transition by pushing for adoption domestically—adding more solar capacity each year than the rest of the world combined—and grabbing 80 percent of the global market share for solar panels (as well as 60 percent of the wind turbines). It recently debuted an EV battery that can go for nearly 1,000 miles on a single charge that takes only about 6 seconds. This development alone will transform global transportation.

Yet China is also the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses and remains heavily dependent on fossil fuel imports. In 2024, for example, China relied on fossil fuels for 86 percent of its energy supply. The country has one foot in the past and one in the future.

Japan is an equally stark example of a “Green-dragger.” To be sure, Japan was a pioneer in energy efficiency from the 1970s on. It was a leading innovator in the global environment movement for several decades. More recently, the government introduced a plan for Green industrialization. But the Iran War has revealed just how little progress the country has made in its energy transition and how domestic roadblocks continue to impede its progress.

The Price of Industrialization

Japan’s post-war economic miracle was fueled by imported fossil fuels. The country produces no natural gas and virtually no oil. Its coal production is negligible.

Not surprisingly, Japan is the second largest natural gas importer in the world (behind China), the third largest coal importer (behind China and India), and the fifth largest importer of oil. All of this imported dirty energy has pushed Japan into the number five position globally for its carbon emissions.

Environmentalism certainly exists in Japan. Thanks to the efforts of environmental movements, the air in Tokyo and other cities is no longer toxic. High-profile cases like the mercury poisoning in the coastal city of Minamata precipitated a campaign to clean up waterways. Japanese programs established some early environmental projects in China in the 1990s.

But change comes slowly to Japan, especially from the top down. Japanese governments have been willing to take risks on technology, but they have also been loath to embrace policies that could potentially disrupt the social fabric.

So, for instance, like the European Union and the United States under the Biden administration, Japan has committed to a government-led transition to clean energy. Its Green industrial plan—the GX Basic Policy—focuses on investments into batteries and semiconductors and is coordinating investments among nearly 750 companies. It recently launched an emissions trading system, Yet none of this will wean the country of its addiction to fossil fuels at anything close to the rate necessary to achieve rapid decarbonization.

Moreover, the country remains wildly optimistic about the ability of technology to compensate for its lack of resolve. For instance, it has invested heavily in “clean coal” technologies. But despite claims that carbon-capture methods or “coal-ammonia co-firing” will somehow make coal power more efficient or more palatable, the thinktank E3G concludes that “decades of ‘clean coal’ promotion have left coal technologies either high-emitting in the real world, or stuck in a perpetual planning phase.”

Ultimately, then, Japan is a serious Green-dragger. Its emissions are falling but not nearly enough to meet even the tepid targets of the Paris agreement. It is heavily committed to natural gas as a “transition fuel,” and that means building up fossil fuel infrastructure. One important development is indeed driving down energy use and emissions: the country’s declining population. But that’s not a development the government is going to promote.

The Costs of War

The Iran war could push the world in one of two directions: doubling down on clean energy or trying to exit the crisis the dirty way.

Much depends on Asia. The region is expected to account for much of the increase in oil and natural gas use in the coming years. It is also responsible for 84 percent of global coal-fired power. “If Asia turns around and says, ‘No, we’re not going to grow with fossil fuels, we are going to grow with electrotech,’ that means fossil fuels will peak, and will peak sooner than we think,” Daan Walter of the think tank Ember told Grist Magazine.

Even if it continues to favor fossil fuels at home, China is ready to help the rest of the world move toward clean energy. Because of the Iran War, China finds itself in the enviable position of selling lemonade in a heatwave. As The New York Times reports, lots of countries are buying what China is selling: “Fifty countries, including Australia, India, Egypt and even the United States, have set monthly records for the highest Chinese solar imports.”

Japan, with its history of environmentalism, its embrace of industrial policy, and its track record of technological innovation, could lead the region down the clean-energy path. So far, that’s not happening. As a result of the Iran War, Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae has pledged to make Japan completely energy self-sufficient—not through a Green transition but with a nuclear step backward. The government has a tailwind on this issue. Over 40 percent of the population supports the restart of nuclear plants—versus around 25 percent against—which is quite the reversal 15 years after the Fukushima catastrophe.

Japan is not alone. China and South Korea are looking to beef up their nuclear sectors. Vietnam and the Philippines are looking into developing the sector.

Nuclear is neutral when it comes to carbon emissions, but it has dirty byproducts of its own (not to mention the risks of future Fukushimas). A case can be made to maintain current nuclear plants to provide energy in the interim while renewable systems are built out. But spending huge sums on new nuclear plants is a recipe for stranded assets.

Perhaps it’s naïve to believe that Japan could again be a leader in the region, this time on clean energy. South Korea has been generally more willing to take risks, such as pledging to phase out coal by 2040, but it too is basically a Green-dragger. Vietnam and India are rapidly adding renewable energy infrastructure, but they too remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

The region hasn’t yet adjusted to the new realities created by the Iran War. Countries in Asia, which will determine the future of fossil fuel use, must be a lot bolder. And someone has to take the lead. If conservative, risk-averse Japan responds to the wake-up call of the Iran War to accelerate dramatically its exit from the fossil fuel era, that could indeed inspire the rest of the region to follow suit.

And if that happens, the planet has a real chance to avoid the worst-case scenarios of climate change.

The post Saving the Planet Depends on Asia appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

The U.S. weapons and war budget already exceeds $1 trillion, and Trump and his cronies want even more.

Trump’s Pentagon budget request for FY 2027 includes $95 billion to buy more bombs and missiles, and specifically to restock munitions used in the U.S.-Israel war of aggression on Iran and those fueling ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Lebanon. The Administration plans to continue to arm Israel, who the Trump National Defense Strategy identifies as “a model ally” that the United States has “an opportunity now to further empower.”

For context, this $95 billion in taxpayer dollars for munitions – if passed – will be 20% more than the U.S. Department of Education’s entire discretionary budget for 2026 ($79 billion). Instead of investing in schools to help them fill the 400,000+ national teacher shortage and address the nation’s plummeting math and reading scores, the Trump Administration and their Republican allies in Congress are investing in missiles to kill more children in billionaire-backed foreign wars.

Key munitions slated for increased production under this proposal include:

• Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), a new type of short-range ballistic missile. The United States used PRSM in combat for the first time in its most recent illegal attack on Iran (Operation Epic Fury), launching them from U.S. bases in neighboring Middle East countries.
• Tomahawk Guided Cruise Missiles, which are being launched at Iran from Navy warships and submarines stationed in the Persian Gulf, more than 7,000 miles away from the U.S. mainland. An American Tomahawk missile was most likely used to target a girls’ elementary school in Iran in March, killing 170 people – almost all children under the age of twelve. This criminal attack is one of many that has killed thousands of Iranian civilians.
• Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system missiles, which use advanced radars to track and intercept incoming ballistic missiles. After attacking Iran, the U.S. utilized THAAD and Patriot interceptor missiles to block Iran’s retaliatory strikes bound for Israel and regional U.S. bases and warships the U.S. had used to launch their attack. The enormous price tag of THAAD interceptors – $15.5 million per missile – contributed to the high cost of U.S. munitions expenditure, estimated to exceed $11 billion dollars in the early weeks of the war. Had the U.S. and Israel not initiated a war with Iran, there would be no need to use or replace these costly missile systems, which taxpayers are now being asked to pay for at the expense of basic needs.

Each of the missiles the Department of War wants to produce cost millions – sometimes tens of millions – of taxpayer dollars. And they want to build thousands more. Pentagon contractors, who are already cashing in on the carnage, are set to rake in even higher profits if this budget is approved.

To break down the enormity of these per-unit costs, below are examples of social programs we could have for the price of a single missile, sourced from the National Priorities Project’s trade-off calculator.

Munitions vs. Human Needs Trade-Offs:

• A single PrSM missile ($1.6 million) could fund the following for a year:
  • 93 Head Start slots for children; or
  • 182 public housing units; or
  • 186 people receiving Medicaid services for a year; or
  • 704 people receiving SNAP benefits; or
  • 3,019 households with solar electricity.
• A single Tomahawk missile ($2.6 million) could fund the following for a year:
  • 151 Head Start slots for children; or
  • 296 public housing units; or
  • 303 people receiving Medicaid services for a year; or
  • 1,144 people receiving SNAP benefits; or
  • 4,906 households with solar electricity.
• A single THAAD interceptor missile ($15.5 million) could fund the following for a year:
  • 901 Head Start slots for children; or
  • 1,770 public housing units; or
  • 1,809 people receiving Medicaid services for a year; or
  • 6,822 people receiving SNAP benefits; or
  • 29,251 households with solar electricity.

Instead of subsidizing war profiteers to kill children and destabilize countries around the world, our government could be delivering real security for our communities. The human and financial costs of U.S. military aggression will continue to grow unless Congress stops funding endless war.

There is still time to fight back. Efforts to stop Trump’s record-setting war budget from growing even larger are currently underway, and need your support. Contact your representatives today and tell them to vote “no” on any increase to the Pentagon budget. Our tax dollars should be supporting families at home, not bombing them abroad.

The post Each Missile the Pentagon Buys to Commit War Crimes Abroad Could Fund Critical Services at Home appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

The video opens with a stark example: Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made 1,794 times what the average Starbucks worker earned last year. As the host puts it, “This [pay] gap is almost like a shorthand for understanding the entire economy.”

Sarah Anderson traces today’s extreme CEO-worker pay gaps back to policy choices that reshaped the economy in favor of executives and shareholders.

“Back in the 1960s, the gap between average big-company CEO pay and worker pay was in the range of about 25 to 1,” she says. That began to change as tax policy shifted. “That was a time when top marginal tax rates on the rich were much higher than they are today,” Sarah explains. “And so there wasn’t the same incentive to shovel out all this money to the CEO because so much of it would have been taxed away anyway.”

But beginning in the Reagan era, she adds, policymakers “started really slashing those top tax rates.”

The result has been a dramatic widening of the gap between CEOs and workers, with consequences far beyond corporate balance sheets. The video connects exploding executive pay to an economy where wages have failed to keep up with basic needs, especially housing, even as the cost of living has continued to rise.

“Since the administration of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, we’ve been hearing this line that we need to lift taxes on the top,” Sarah explains. “And here we are, 45, 46 years later, and we are still waiting for that model of the economy to trickle down to the rest of us.”

In response, workers and advocates in San Francisco and Los Angeles are urging support for ballot initiatives that would increase taxes on companies with massive CEO-worker pay gaps. As Sarah explains, “These overpaid CEO taxes would raise taxes at the local level on companies that have huge gaps between their CEO and their worker pay.”

“The tax would basically give corporations a choice,” she notes. “They could either narrow their gaps and avoid paying the tax, or they would need to pay extra revenue, which would go to really vital services that these cities need.”

These ballot initiatives could also impact efforts to rein in runaway CEO pay nationwide. More Perfect Union notes that “billionaires and corporations are spending big to stop both the tax itself and what it represents: a new kind of economy.”

Watch the full More Perfect Union video here:

The post VIDEO: How Cities Can Rein In Overpaid CEOs appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

But in reality, the opposite is true: Fossil fuel dependence makes life more expensive.

…

Read the full article on Truthout.

The post Trump’s Loyalty to Fossil Fuel Companies Is Driving Up Inflation appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

In a spirited debate on WHYY’s Studio 2, Chuck Collins, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of Burned by Billionaires, debates with Adam Michel of the Cato Institute about one of the most pressing economic questions of our time: should billionaires pay more in taxes?

Chuck opens by tracing how the United States arrived at this moment of extreme inequality. “Starting in the late ’70s, lawmakers and policymakers started to change the laws, tax policy, trade policy in a way that launched decades of growing inequality,” he explains. “The rules of the economy have been changed to funnel wealth to the top and keep wages low and flat — and that’s been the underlying story of the last four decades.”

Chuck strongly rejects the notion that concentrated wealth is simply a byproduct of innovation and hard work. “These concentrations of wealth and power are distorting everything we care about,” he warns. “We have crossed a line.” Once a fortune crosses the $50 million threshold, he argues, it stops being just personal wealth and starts becoming something else entirely: “It’s a senator. It’s a newspaper. It’s influence and power.”

On the question of tax dodging, Chuck is direct: “When you’re a billionaire, you have a whole armada of financial planners and tax attorneys — I call them the wealth defense industry — who work on your behalf to play these shell games and move money to the shadows.”

That is why the polling data is so clear — ordinary people clearly recognize what’s happening. “They know that the rich have been gaming the system. They see that their own tax bills are going up at the state and local level as we shift taxes off of wealth and onto wages,” Chuck explains.

Chuck lays out a concrete three-part solution: protect and strengthen the income tax, restore the inheritance tax to its historical levels, and institute an annual wealth tax — paired with international treaties to prevent wealth flight. “If we did those three things plus enforcement,” he says, “you could begin to turn the corner and reduce these extreme concentrations of wealth and power in a generation.”

This solution has a solid precedent. “When we taxed high incomes and high wealth in the years after World War II, we moved from a society of 44% home ownership to 70%. We narrowed the racial wealth divide,” Chuck notes.

Chuck emphasizes that this is a proven solution: “Taxing extreme wealth, investing it in things that create opportunity for everybody — that’s a formula that we actually know, and we’ve demonstrated that it created shared prosperity for decades.”

Listen to the full debate on WHYY’s Studio 2 — or watch below:

The post AUDIO: Chuck Collins Makes a Case for Taxing Billionaires — for a Fairer Economy appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

Leo refused to cooperate, arguing that the charges were politically motivated, and that D.A. Schwalb lacked the authority to investigate. And Leo moved the 85 Fund and other entities to Texas, where they would avoid further scrutiny.

In response, not only did Schwab-affiliated DAFgiving360 not pause funding to the 85 Fund (one of its very largest grantees), but it chose to award the nonprofit $160 million that year and $148 million the next, accounting for almost the entirety of the group’s revenue.

The contrast with its behavior towards the Southern Poverty Law Center couldn’t be starker.

Why DAFgiving360’s explanation doesn’t pass the smell test

In April the Justice Department filed what most saw as highly suspect and politically motivated charges of financial fraud against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Shortly afterwards, DAFgiving360, the donor-advised fund (DAF) sponsor affiliated with financial services giant Charles Schwab, and also known as Schwab Charitable, blocked donors from making grants to the civil rights group.

DAFgiving360’s move followed similar actions by the DAF affiliates of Fidelity and Vanguard, the other major commercial firms whose DAF sponsors now dominate the field: Together, they ranked as three of the top five U.S. public charities receiving the most contributions in 2024. All three sponsors have come under sharp criticism for capitulating to the Trump Administration’s mounting attacks on opponents, but DAFgiving360’s action had an especially hypocritical stench.

According to the New York Times, a spokesperson for the fund said, “If a governing body of a charity declares an investigation into a charity it oversees, DAFgiving360 may suspend grants to the organization.”

And yet, over the past several years, DAFgiving360 has continued to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to the 85 Fund, a charitable conduit of Leonard Leo, one of the country’s most influential conservative legal strategists and kingmakers. DAFgiving360 has supported Leo’s slush fund even as he came under investigation for enriching himself by using money from the charity and other nonprofits he controlled to pay tens of millions of dollars to his own consulting business.

The long tale of Leo and Schwab Charitable

To understand how instrumental donor-advised funds are to Leo’s influence network, it’s important to look back further. In 2021, Leonard Leo’s dark money group Marble Freedom Trust received $1.6 billion from billionaire Barre Seid – one of the largest political advocacy gifts in history. In the years since (through April 2025), Marble has moved $587 million to a donor-advised fund at DAFgiving360.

During roughly that same period (July 2021 through June 2025), DAFgiving360 made grants to the 85 Fund totaling $561 million, accounting for almost all the group’s revenue ($564 million from 2021 through 2024; its 2025 data is not yet available).

This funding pattern alone violated DAFgiving360’s own internal guidelines. And it became even more suspect in 2023, when reports alleged that Leo was personally benefiting from charitable grants to nonprofits that he controlled – grants like those from DAFgiving360. In February 2024, Bloomberg reported on $100 million in payments to Leo’s firm (CRC Advisors) from groups he founded or with whom he was affiliated. Later that year, top D.C. watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) highlighted the same pattern of payments and apparent self-dealing. They followed up in June 2025, with a piece showing how Leonard Leo’s firm continues to rake in millions from his own dark money network.

The 85 Fund is Leo’s primary 501(c)(3) vehicle, and functions primarily to grant money to an array of conservative organizations. Though structured as a public charity, a letter obtained by Axios in 2024 revealed how Leo intended to use the Fund to reshape the conservative movement: He threatened to cut off groups unless they shifted from “ideation” towards “weaponizing those ideas and policies to crush liberal dominance at the choke points of influence and power in our society.”

Politico first reported this maneuvering in March of 2023: “A network of political non-profits formed by judicial activist Leonard Leo moved at least $43 million to a new firm he is leading, raising questions about how his conservative legal movement is funded.”

The following month the Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint calling on the IRS to investigate Leo’s network of nonprofits. As The Guardian reported, “Leonard Leo, a rightwing legal activist, has raked in more than $73 million over six years from non-profit groups that may be diverting money illegally to his businesses, according to a watchdog complaint seen by The Guardian.”

Then in August, Politico reported that Washington, D.C. District Attorney Brian Schwalb had opened an investigation into Leo’s network of nonprofits and the possibility that The Federalist Society co-chair had abused nonprofit laws for personal enrichment.

Leo refused to cooperate with the investigation, arguing that the charges were politically motivated and that Schwalb lacked the authority to investigate. And he moved the 85 Fund and other entities to Texas, where they would avoid further scrutiny.

We have no further knowledge of the D.A.’s investigation, or of how DAFgiving360 may have addressed the matter directly with Leonard Leo. In the time since, however, reports show how Leo’s network of nonprofits continued paying his firm tens of millions of dollars, and DAFgiving360 continued to direct hundreds of millions of dollars to the 85 Fund.

Alongside these allegations and DA Schwalb’s investigation, Leo and the 85 Fund came under further scrutiny from a different angle: Revelations came to light that Leo had secretly steered funding to Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, using the Judicial Education Project (the 85 Fund’s earlier name) as a conduit. As the Washington Post reported, “In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas…The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case.”

Amidst this flurry of reportage questioning the legality and propriety of Leo’s funding schemes, his organizations remained top echelon clients of Schwab’s charitable affiliate. Since receiving its initial $1.6 billion windfall from Barre Seid, Marble Freedom Trust has transferred nearly $600 million to a donor-advised-fund at DAFgiving360, which in turn has granted nearly $600 million to the 85 Fund, making it among the sponsor’s top five grantees each of its last four fiscal years:

2022 – $142 million, 2nd largest
2023 – $141 million, 2nd largest
2024 – $160 million, 4th largest
2025 – $148 million, 5th largest

The Judicial Education Project was at number 6 in 2021, with a grant of $39.8 million, before the big money from Marble Freedom Trust kicked in.

Funding from DAFgiving360 has in turn made up almost all of the 85 Fund’s revenue during this period. Here is the 85 Fund’s total revenue for recent years from currently available data:

2021 – $117 million
2022 – $135 million
2023 – $143 million
2024 – $169 million

Without these grants, the Fund would not qualify as a public charity. As we have explained here and again, the grants violated both the intent of IRS rules ensuring that public charities are not controlled by private interests, as well as DAFgiving360’s own internal grant guidelines that purport to follow those IRS rules: “DAFgiving360  generally will not approve grants to organizations that would likely be considered non-operating foundations absent the DAFgiving360 grants.”

And since the source of those funds, Marble Freedom Trust, is also controlled by Leo, DAFgiving360’s grants also violate its guidelines aimed at preventing self-dealing: “DAFgiving360 generally will not approve a grant recommendation to an organization that is controlled by the recommending DAFgiving360 account holder and/or their family members and/or their affiliates.”

The upshot

Schwab’s DAFgiving360 affiliate is acting arbitrarily, applying its guidelines inconsistently, and giving credence to accusations that cutting off SPLC is a politically motivated choice.

They say they will “generally” not approve grants under certain conditions, just as they tell the New York Times that they “may” cut funding to a group that comes under investigation. But for Leonard Leo they’ve kept the spigot on, while for SPLC they closed it off immediately. In a word, this stinks.

Philanthropic capital continues to accumulate in donor-advised fund sponsors, which manage hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and comprise 8 of the nation’s top 10 best-funded public charities.

We should all be profoundly concerned about these sponsors’ biases and concentrated power. By choosing to withhold grants based on the preferences of a corrupt administration, they deprive donors of their own voice and determine a great deal about what remains of our civil society.

What is at first glance a case of hypocrisy at a single sponsor warns of what can happen when financial institutions position themselves at crucial choke points of democracy.

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