After today’s Committee on House Administration hearing on congressional stock trading, it is clear there are few things that Republicans love more than their stock trading. How else are they supposed to exploit their positions of power to line their own pockets?
Fortunately, Democrats are serious about passing the STOCK 2.0 Act and barring members of Congress from trading stocks, and used today’s hearing to expose the self-serving corruption that stock-trading politicians use to enrich themselves.
See below for quotes from Republicans on how much they love trading stocks to make themselves richer:
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“If we enact something like this, it will strip the rights and the freedoms of individuals, and everybody on this committee is a free American citizen that has rights”
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“The current rules in place work… [banning members of Congress from trading stock] is an unremarkably silly idea.”
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“I don’t think [banning members of Congress from trading stock] is a good idea.”
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“Right now I’m not ready to say I’m ready to do that.”
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“This is a free country; this is a citizen legislative body that should be free to do what you want to do.”
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“I think it’s a solution in search of a problem”
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A new memo from ECU // LAV Action Fund found that in 2021, members of Congress traded nearly half a billion dollars, investing in companies they oversee, like Big Tech and Wall Street, while buying and selling over 5,100 stocks.
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