Reduce the core defense budget by $10 billion
Federal budget
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Appropriations belong to Congress, so no company can cut this budget. The documented drag on cuts is contractor political spending. In the two decades after 2001, the weapons industry spent $2.5 billion on lobbying and $285 million on campaign contributions while fielding about 700 lobbyists a year. Defense contractors spent nearly $70 million on lobbying in the first half of 2023 alone, ahead of the annual defense bill, with $3 million in contributions to Armed Services Committee members. The industry's reach runs beyond lobbying: contributions to the committees that write the bills, 1,700 former generals and procurement officials hired into the arms business, and about $1 billion given to the think tanks that frame threat debates. Fear of looking weak on defense plays a part in Congress, yet even the jobs argument is amplified by contractor campaign maps. The top contractors are publicly traded, so owners can press them to disclose and rein in this political activity, which helps clear the path without itself setting a budget. Majorities of both parties support this modest cut, and no other documented barrier stands in its way, so we judge contractor political influence the linchpin: owners who stand that machine down can release the block.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Common Ground of the American People: The Federal Budget (Americans on the FY2025 Budget), Program for Public Consultation / Voice of the People, survey May 30 - June 16, 2025
- Pathways to Pentagon Spending Reductions: Removing the Obstacles, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, 2022-03-02
- Defense contractors spent $70 million lobbying ahead of annual defense budget bill, OpenSecrets, 2023-10
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Represents faith-based filers at the major defense contractors and coordinated a 2026 letter from 52 investors to five of them on weapons production, sales and human rights due diligence.
Filed the 2024 proposal at Lockheed Martin asking the company to report annually on whether its lobbying and electioneering spending aligns with its own human rights policy.
Filed repeated proposals at Northrop Grumman asking for publication of human rights impact assessments covering high-risk products and services.
Northrop Grumman shareholders to vote on human rights proposal, Governance Intelligence, 2021
4 campaigns on record
Stop producing weapons prohibited under international law, suspend weapons sales where there is a credible risk of human rights violations, adopt human rights due diligence aligned with the UN Guiding Principles, and run an independent human rights review separate from government export licensing.
Result: 52 investors representing over $145 billion signed the 2 July 2026 letter
No company agreed to the requests. RTX, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin replied but declined board-level meetings, General Dynamics called the demands not a basis for constructive shareholder engagement, and Boeing did not respond.
Evaluate and publish a report describing the alignment of the company's political activities, including direct and indirect lobbying and political and electioneering expenditures, with its human rights policy.
Result: not stated in source
The case to vote AGAINST Proposal 5 on Lockheed Martin's 2025 Proxy Statement, JLens, 2025
Annually evaluate and publish a report describing how the company's political activities, including direct and indirect lobbying and political and electioneering expenditures, align with its human rights policy.
Result: not stated in source
The same proposal returned in 2025 and received 9.8 percent.
Publish a report with the results of human rights impact assessments examining the actual and potential impacts of high-risk products and services, including those in conflict-affected areas.
With School Sisters of Notre Dame Cooperative Investment Fund
Result: not stated in source for 2021; a similar proposal drew 24.2 percent in 2020 and 31.1 percent in 2019
Northrop Grumman shareholders to vote on human rights proposal, Governance Intelligence, 2021
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Common Ground of the American People's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.