[Hoot Gibson]

Making Congressional insider trading a keystone issue can be a winning strategy for some conservative candidate. It may be too late for the issue to save Rick Perry's campaign but other conservatives need to jump on this issue before Obama does. Obama intends to run against Congress this year, and this issue has legs.

(This is a Rick Perry editorial but he is stirring up a hornet's nest for both parties' members of Congress. Only a handful of people in Congress favor making trading on insider information illegal for members of Congress and this should be an extremely embarrassing issue for the leadership of both parties in both the House and Senate. If Republicans don't jump on the issue, then Obama might beat them to the punch.)[INDENT]

Stop Insider Trading Dead In Its Tracks

Earlier this week, the Chicago Tribune ran a little noted editorial on the insider trading scandal plaguing Congress, calling out phony efforts to reform the rules and demanding that we finally put a stop to this outrageous and unethical behavior.

If you haven’t read the editorial yet, I recommend you do because while the professional political punditry class is more interested in superfluous items like the political horse race and candidate attire, the reality is that members of both parties in Washington, D.C., are abusing their positions and ordinary Americans have had enough.

As the editorial notes, “’60 Minutes’ reported that Pelosi and her husband participated in an initial public offering from Visa in 2008, just as credit card legislation started moving through the House. The Pelosis bought 5,000 shares at the IPO price of $44 a share. Two days later, the shares traded at $64. The legislation, which was likely to cut credit card company profits, went nowhere that year. It passed two years later.”
It’s not enough members of Congress make $174,000 a year, some are trading on inside information to use their public service to enrich themselves.

[/INDENT]

[vector]

This is true

[Hoot Gibson]

This would be a great issue for Romney to adopt. This would cement his support among Tea Partiers and it would reverberate with other voters across the political spectrum. I don't understand why not a single candidate has made this a major part of his campaign. It is a no-brainer. Perry wrote an editorial but I have not heard him mention this issue on the campaign trail. Maybe he did and i just missed it but Perry will be out of the race barring a shockingly good showing in SC.

[SKINNYPIG]

Maybe the candidates want a piece of the action themselves.

[Hoot Gibson]

Maybe the candidates want a piece of the action themselves.

I don't think that presidents are exempt from insider trading laws but I would be shocked if most current and past members of Congress did not take advantage of this large, lucrative loophole. It is amazing that the supporters of a bill banning this practice cannot get a floor vote on the issue. That tells me that the corruption is bi-partisan.