End Insider Stock Trading
End Insider Stock Trading in Washington
Americans who are leading the U.S. government should not have their votes, debate positions, or any type of recommendations influenced by personal monetary considerations.
Insider trading isn’t just about the inherit wrongness of having two different sets of financial rules between Washington elites and everyone else, it’s the fact that the needs and livelihoods of the American people are taking a backseat to the personal wealth of members of congress.
Our public servants should be serving us, the American people, not their desire to line their pockets.
Every elected official in Washington or federal appointee who requires Senate confirmation, as well as their spouses, should put all their investments into a blind trust. Blind trusts would create more honest decision making for the American people.
If you want to hold the prestige of a leader of American communities, you must be willing to put your own needs behind those of your neighbors. Public service should be about sacrifice, not grift and greed.
To understand the depth of the problem, all one need do is look back to the toothless nature of the 2012 STOCK Act that was supposed to prevent congressional insider trading and conflicts of interest. You'll be shocked to discover that the law is merely window dressing so elites at the time could preach that they were taking action.
One example of why the 2012 law is a facade is that there is no real punishment for lawmakers who fail to properly disclose trades. The standard penalty? A $200 fine. That's right, a whopping $200. And “fine” isn’t the right term. They’re actually called late fees. Yes, "late fees." And many infractions are overturned by congressional “ethics” committees.
In fact, Business Insider reported last year that 1 in 10 lawmakers have recently violated the law by failing to report their financial trades. The excuses range from ignorance of the law to accounting mistakes.
If the law actually had any merit to it, the lawmakers who bought and sold pharmaceutical stock just before COVID, and made thousands of dollars, would have been indicted. Or the Dallas and Boston Federal Reserve Presidents wouldn’t of just been forced to resign because of “controversial trading,” they would have been perp walked in cuffs.
If we want to restore power back to the American people, the rampant legalized corruption in Washington must end. Members of Congress must put their investments into a blind trust.