It is rare to find a similarity areas between President Donald Trump and former house speaker Nancy Pelosi. But they both support a conference law that will prohibit members of the congress and their households to act shares.
The legislation, which released its jurisdiction committee at the end of July, has a broad two -part support and will help public corruption rooting while the confidence of Americans in the congress is being restored.
Common sense would suggest that the congress should not actively act shares and bonds while owning their office. And 86% of those who were investigated in 2023 as part of a study by the University of Maryland, preferred a ban in the field of conference shares, in which Republicans and Democrats show almost identical levels of support.
President Donald Trump and former house speaker Nancy Pelosi
As Minister of Finance Scott Bessent emphasized in an interview of 14 August, the credibility of the house and the Senate is at stake when members trade individual shares. He emphasized the “striking returns” that some members have earned, and noted that “every hedge fund would be jealous of them.”
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From the perspective of a treasury official, this issue goes beyond ethics. It affects the integrity of our financial system.
Markets trust trust, transparency and a level playing field. When members of Congress act with access to information or influence that ordinary investors do not have, this undermines the trust of the public in both the government and the economy.
Treasury Leadership has an established interest to ensure that policy is affected to serve the public interest, not to generate personal profit because the credibility of the United States depends as a financial steward.
In addition to President Trump and Pelosi, there are several other unlikely bedgots in the congress that support the ban. They include liberals such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y. and Senator Ron Wyden, D-Or., And Conservatives such as Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas and Senator Josh Hawley, R-MO. In particular, both Mike Johnson, R-La., The speaker of the house, and Hakeem Jeffries, DN.Y., the minority leader, support the ban.
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The support of Pelosi for legislation is remarkably given the well -documented history of its families with stock trading. Last year, her husband, Paul, took the headlines through between $ 500,000 and $ 1 million in visa shares only a few weeks before the Ministry of Justice has established a civil antitrust procedure against the company. The transaction led to speculation that Paul Pelosi may have been tipped by his wife, or contacts in the Biden administration, about the chance of a request against visa.
Only six weeks before the presidential election, the monopolistic claim of the Visa Suit was undermined by a simple fact: the network is confronted with robust competition from other debit card companies, as well as newer payment networks such as Zelle and Venmo. But while the legal process unfolds, the issue of conference share trade remains. And the volume of activity is breathtaking.
Last year, 120 congress members did more than 9,400 transactions, according to Capitol Trades, a platform that follows the market trade by American chosen officials. The implementation of some members suggests that they have to move to Wall Street. The top 10 – six Republicans and four Democrats – all had a return of more than 70%, according to a different platform, unusual whales. And this was in a year in which the S&P 500 only returned 25%.
It is destined to act even more this year. Up to and including 19 August there had already been nearly 9,200 transactions, with more than $ 395 million.
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Is this trade that influences public policy? It is difficult to know, definitive. But a few years ago, the New York Times investigated transactions that were done by members of the congress from 2019 to 2021. The newspaper reported that there were 97 senators or representatives “who reported transactions or direct family members in shares or other financial assets that intersected with the work of committees they serve on.”
In one case, a congress member in California revealed that his wife Boeing shares sold on 5 March 2020. That was only one day for a committee that he was a member of, a report from the company that criticized the company in connection with two fatal accidents of his 737 Max Jet.
It is rare that members of the congress are prosecuted for market trade, but not unheard of. In 2019, a congressman from New York, Chris Collins, resigned after he had guilty that he had shared confidential company information with his son and lying about it with federal agents. He was sentenced to 26 months in prison (and later forgiven by President Trump).
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Stock trade by members of the congress, and the suspicion that activities contribute, contributes to distrust with the government. Last year a PEW survey showed that only 2% of Americans believed that the federal government would do what is good “just about” and only 21% said: “Usually.” That distrust is unhealthy for the democracy of the country, whether you are a republican or democrat, and makes it more difficult for both parties to help its agenda.
Forbidding members of the commercial shares congress would help restore confidence in the federal government. A prohibition would also be an opportunity for members of both parties to come together to support a measure that will benefit the entire country. That cannot happen fast enough.
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