The Washington D.C. wheeler-dealers are making patsies out of the rest of us.
Members of Congress get million-dollar-plus expense accounts, lifetime pensions and lavish perks, but for the greedy, that’s not enough. They’re also racking up big bucks trading stocks in the very same companies Congress regulates.
Stock picking by members of Congress should be illegal because they have an unfair edge over the rest of us. They’re privy to the regulatory burdens or legal changes these companies are likely to face. And top leaders, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, actually control what’s ahead for these companies.
That control is like gold. Pelosi and her husband, venture capitalist Paul Pelosi, report trading tens of millions of dollars of assets a year, largely in Big Tech. The Nancy Pelosi Portfolio Tracker, based on these reported trades, estimates the couple is outperforming Wall Street titans such as Warren Buffett. Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow marvels that the Pelosis bested the S&P 500 by nearly 15% in 2020. All the while, she’s tamping down demands to regulate Big Tech.
Members of Congress are not the only ones double dealing. On Jan. 14, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida stepped down, following resignations of both the Dallas and Boston Fed chiefs. They’re in trouble for trading stocks and mortgage-backed securities while making Fed policies that impacted those markets.
A Wall Street Journal investigation finds some federal judges also climbing aboard the stock picking gravy train. Sixty-one federal judges actually traded a company’s stock while the company was a litigant in their courtroom.
Congress needs to clean up this spreading corruption, starting with its own.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) is offering a bill that requires federal lawmakers and their immediate family to put their stocks in a blind trust or diversified mutual fund. Republican Sens. Josh Hawley (Missouri) and Ted Cruz (Texas), who are as far to the right as Ossoff is to the left, say they’ll offer similar bills.
Pelosi has the power to block all of them. In March 2021, Pelosi kept a bipartisan ban on stock trading from ever getting out of the Rules Committee and on to the House floor for a vote.
Looking ahead, if Republicans capture the House in the midterm elections, count on the stock trading ban to gain momentum. Encouragingly, Biden administration economic adviser Brian Deese supports the ban to “restore faith in our institutions,” suggesting the president might actually sign it.
Limiting stock trading will also pave the way for an urgently needed reform of Big Tech.
In October 2020, on the eve of the Trump-Biden presidential contest, Facebook and Twitter canceled the New York Post’s damaging findings that Hunter Biden’s laptop implicated his father in clandestine deals with the Chinese.
Big Tech literally has the power to tilt an election by depriving the public of damning information about one candidate.
To prevent that, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tennessee) has introduced the 21st Century FREE Speech Act, which would regulate Big Tech platforms, treating them like railroads, telephone companies or other public utilities. AT&T can’t bar you from using the phone because it dislikes your political speech. But Facebook, Twitter and YouTube routinely silence speakers they dislike, even the president of the United States. This proposed law would put a stop to it and restore free debate.
What’s standing in the way? Democrats are zealous to silence what they call “disinformation,” never mind that one person’s disinformation is another person’s truth. But the other barrier is Democrats’ large stock investments in Big Tech.
Nearly half of Democratic lawmakers’ stock holdings are in Big Tech, compared with a mere 14% of Republicans’ holdings. The Pelosis have reaped between $5.6 million and $30.4 million from investing in just five Big Tech firms — Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft — since 2007. No wonder she’s slow-walking any reforms of Big Tech.
When they say it’s not the money, you can bet it’s the money. Congress is cashing in, and freedom-loving Americans are getting screwed.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and author of “The Next Pandemic,” available at Amazon.com. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
“Americans Are Being Sold Out By Government Insiders”
By the treasonous, dishonest, destructive, socialist Democrat Party
ruled government!!
WE the People
either Destroy this treasonous, dishonest, destructive, socialist Democrat Party
OR
This treasonous, dishonest, destructive, socialist Democrat Party
will destroy WE the People.
When they say it’s not the money, you can bet it’s the money. Congress is cashing in, and freedom-loving Americans are getting screwed.
We must destroy this regime or it will devour our country and our children. They have no limits as to what they believe they can do to us. If democrats win in Nov we will either be slaves or dead.
SO true. EITHER WE END THEM< or they will end us.
“When they say it’s not the money, you can bet it’s the money. Congress is cashing in, and freedom-loving Americans are getting screwed.”
Yep—we/re nothing but taxpayers and voters—and they are doing everything they can to make taxes as burdensome as possible and to rig elections so that they come out on top.
“Pelosi has the power to block all of them. In March 2021, Pelosi kept a bipartisan ban on stock trading from ever getting out of the Rules Committee and on to the House floor for a vote.” You can bet that she will do everything in her power to make sure the gravy train doesn’t get derailed. This woman is bound to sleep with the Devil—she is evilness on steroids.
And how can these people possibly understand what the average American citizen deals with on a daily basis?? Is their lifestyle hampered by inflation—high gas prices—high prices period—COVID mandates?? Hell no—while they kneel on the necks of us citizens to the point where we can’t breathe, they just keep getting richer and richer. And these are the people always barking about the rich paying their fair share in taxes. It’s like two different countries rolled into one—we have the monarchy and the peasantry. Of all the things that are divisive—no wonder they dwell on racism—they don’t want the spotlight shining in their direction.
The democrat Politicians Senitment, I’ve got Mine, Let them eat Cake !
OR starve.. OR suffer criminals, because the don’t have armed guards protecting them, LIKE WE DO.
This article did not tell us anything we didn’t already know. Washington DC is a filthy morally depraved cesspool of toxic waste!
There’s a lot of people that don’t know this. Half the country think these elected officials are their mommy and daddy. These thieves
will provide from whatever’s leftover after they rob the makers blind. They take their share off the top and distribute the crumbs to the takers and earn the takers’ votes forever in the process.
Unfortunately, it’s been that way, SINCE WE first allowed “lobbyiests” in dc.
Disband, cease & desist to the traitorous American government. Take out the trash America, it will not take itself out. Or live with it and the rats that go with it. You’re getting what you deserve. Maybe muslim will do us the favor & wipe this hell off the earth.
BobLee58:
You comment sounds like it came from a Democrat Snowflake, a disciple of Satan.
Maybe muslim will do us the favor & wipe this hell off the earth.
Too much hyperbole or is it real hate for America that lives in your heart?
The democrat party of America Has Gone A Long Way in destroying America’s original Form of Government . Benjamin Kranklin once was asked ” What Form of Government Do we Have?, And he replied A Republic If We Can Keep it. ” But the democrat party has done everything in their power to Change America’s Government Into their Socialist, Commu ist form of Government , As Thomas Jefferson once Said, ” A Republic if we can keep it. “