The Washington Post Editorial Board is out with — to borrow their word — an “unworkable” idea in their editorial entitled “Banning stock trading for lawmakers is popular but unworkable.” It’s subtitled “Requiring advance warning before buying and selling securities would be an easy and effective fix.”
No. Not good enough. Not by a long way. It’s nowhere near good enough. The entire practice of legislators trading on the stock market should be banned, period.
From the Editorial:
House Republican leaders formulated the bill Trump supports to preempt a Democratic version. The GOP alternative would let lawmakers hold stock they already own and reinvest dividends. It would also let spouses and other family members trade on behalf of lawmakers. The Democratic plan prohibits members and their immediate families from owning individual stocks unless the spouse trades in connection with their primary employment. It would also apply to the president.
Amazingly, I like the Democrat plan better. Which made me suspicious. Surely they have something up their sleeve, but upon reading it (It’s only 10 pages!), it seems solid. It even has real bipartisan support. The “Restore Trust in Congress Act,” introduced last September, counts Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and AOC as co-sponsors! Imagine getting those two to agree on anything! (You can find the bill itself here.)
The bipartisan RTCA includes a complete ban on trading for the elected person, his/her spouse and his/her children. Everyone would have 6 months to get their affairs in order and divest 100% or the fines begin: $50,000 per violation or 10% of the value of the assets.
The Post Editorial goes on:
Polls show more than 80 percent of voters support banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, and political consultants tell clients in both parties it’s a no-brainer message. Privately, however, many members are skeptical. Dozens of House Republicans oppose the bill Trump namechecked on Tuesday, and it’s hard to imagine the GOP version getting the needed votes in the Senate.
Like with the SAVE Act, our garbage Republicans are reluctant to get on the right side of an 80/20 issue. Maddening. And their bill is the far weaker of the two! It lets spouses invest on behalf of the lawmaker, which is ridiculous and negates the whole exercise. Pillow talk, anyone? Why bother even doing it then? And they can’t even agree on that! Good grief.
The Post concludes — wrongly:
…No one should have to liquidate their assets, and take their skin out of the economic game, just to serve the country.
Skin in the game? If having skin in the game is an important principle I’m sure we’ll see the Post Ed. Board out any day now endorsing a new minimum income tax on the half of the country that doesn’t pay any income tax whatsoever right?
No. Our legislators do not need skin in the game of the stock market. They need to serve. Public service. If they want to get rich, they can do it the old fashioned way — out in the private sector. But while they serve, they shall serve — making a perfectly reasonable sacrifice to do so.
And if it’s too much to not trade stocks for a Senate term or two, or the equivalent in the House, well, then guess what? They can choose not to run. The system therefore becomes self-selecting. Gold-diggers need not apply. And we return public service to what it should be: service. Of the public. A temporary job, not a career. Presto. There’s your term-limits.