Say what you will about those two congressmembers, and there’s a lot to say. Both of them certainly represent the hardcore partisan wings of their parties, both are pretty divisive, and both are viewed as heroes by some and idiots by others.
But Matt Gaetz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are coming together in a bipartisan effort. You have to admit, both are independent figures in congress who don’t feel the need to bow to their respective party leaderships.
They both want to ban those in congress from trading stocks. Think back to 2020 when Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler dumped millions of dollars in stocks after a private briefing on Covid she had. This was about a week and a half before the entire nation shutdown, indicating that she got some key inside information.
Her investigation by congress was ultimately dropped, but a real investigation may have implicated even more members of congress, on the both the left and the right. There’s no reason to trust that the investigation was fair or transparent.
Gaetz, when asked about AOC, said she was “wrong a lot” but ultimately “not corrupt”. He has a point.
They aptly named their bill The Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act. It would also ban congresspeople and senator’s spouses from trading stocks as well. They just have too much access to inside information.
Gaetz summed the whole thing up quite nicely saying he wants to “disallow congressional stock trading for the same reason we don’t allow the referee to bet on the game.”
He notes that members of congress traded almost 790 million dollars worth of securities within the last year alone.
There is technically a semblance of a safeguard in place to stop insider congressional trading. Each lawmaker making any investments are required to disclose each and every one. But Bussiness Insider found that 78 members of congress in the span of two years failed to disclose any of their investments. They received absolutely no punishment whatsoever for failing to do so.
It will be interesting to see if this show of bipartisanship continues. Previously, the two partisan policy makers teamed up to require congressional approval before sending American troops to Ukraine.
What a novel idea. Work together, stamp down aggressive foreign policy intervention and weed out congressional corruption. Maybe it’s time to give the radicals a shot. Check out Gaetz on Jesse Waters if you want to see more:
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