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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2022
Posts: 2,760
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Originally Posted by unsunghero
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Yea when I mentioned it a co-worker even brought up that Liz tried that
I just found it funny that diehard Dem shills still came in like “oh yeah well WHAT ABOUT THIS” as a way to deflect out of pure cultish tribalism
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oh yeah well WHAT ABOUT THIS
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“Right now I’m not ready to say I’m ready to do that,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the most senior member of the Senate Republican Conference, said of proposals to bar lawmakers from trading individual stocks.
Grassley, who is up for reelection this year, noted that lawmakers are already required to publicly report their stock trades and face prosecution or censure if they break insider-trading law.
“Transparency brings accountability,” he said.
Grassley reported owning farmland in Butler County, Iowa, and earning between $100,000 and $1,000,000 from grain sales.
He also reported his wife, Barbara Grassley, owning various mutual funds.
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Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) pointed out that he’s one of the least wealthy members of the Senate and questioned why his wife should be required to divest herself from bank stock that she inherited from her father.
“Don’t we have full disclosure now?” he asked. “Gayle and I have got to be among the 5 percent lowest net-worth members of the Senate. It seems to me like full disclosure is something that ought to be sufficient.”
Wicker reported that his spouse, Gayle Wicker, owned between $1,001 and $15,000 in stock in Renasant Corp., a regional banked based in Tupelo, Miss., in 2020.
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Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who is retiring this year, said, “I think it’s a lot easier to say than do.”
He questioned whether it would apply to extended family and could become a disincentive for running for or staying in office.
“Seems to me there’s some danger here of creating one more reason to make it either hard to come, hard to serve or hard to stay, and we’ve done plenty of that,” he said.
He cautioned that just because something polls well doesn’t mean it’s good for the institution.
“If you introduced a bill that members should take a 50 percent cut in pay, that would poll really well,” he said.
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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) questioned how difficult it would be to impose a ban on lawmakers selling individual stocks.
“I think it’s a good idea to prohibit the trading of stocks. I think it’s hard to implement because of people who in some cases come to Congress or the Senate with 401(k)s or other instruments and other investments — private companies, apartment buildings they might have an ownership stake in. So it’s hard to implement but I think the intent is good,” he said.
He said there would “have to be some kind of flexibility” for people “who might come from a small business and own a hardware store.”
“And how do you deal with spouses? You have spouses that are highly accomplished and that are working in businesses. Perhaps they’re actually in the world of stocks or trading stocks. How do you deal with that? So figuring out how to make this work without preventing people from serving is the challenge ahead,” he said.
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Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced last month his plan to introduce the Ban Insider Trading in Congress Act, which would prohibit lawmakers and their spouses from holding, acquiring or selling stocks or “equivalent economic interests” while in office.
“From my point of view, a couple things are critical. Any ban on stock holding and stock trading has got to include spouses, not just members. If you say that spouses are exempt, well then you just created a giant, giant loophole,” he said.
“If you come into Congress, my view is you should have to sell the stock and either put it in a broad-based mutual fund, like most Americans invest in, or in a completely blind trust that you have no control in,” he said.
But Hawley’s not sure how many members of the Senate GOP conference will join the effort.
“I think that in the country the support for this is across the board, but it’s probably strongest among Republican voters and independents. Interestingly, you don’t see that reflected in the caucus. Maybe some of that is that people haven’t really focused on it, but I hope that they will,” he said.
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But Pelosi abruptly shifted her stance this year, telling reporters Wednesday that she is now open to restricting members of Congress from trading stocks.
She did add the major caveat that she wants new rules to apply to the Supreme Court as well.
“It has to be government-wide,” she said, noting, “The third branch of government, the judiciary, has no reporting.”
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01-25-2023, 11:23 PM
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