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The Senate has a new plan to ban congressional stock trading. Here's what's in it. (www.businessinsider.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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On Wednesday, a key Senate panel approved a bill that would ban lawmakers from trading stocks.

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee approved the legislation — known as the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act — by an 8-4 vote.

Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mitt Romney of Utah, and James Lankford of Oklahoma voted against it.

"The public doesn't think we should profit from having information that they don't have, and we shouldn't" Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, one of the key sponsors of the bill, told reporters in his office on Tuesday.

It's a sweeping bill — but it wouldn't take full effect until 2027 Under this bill, members of Congress — along with the President and Vice President — would be banned from purchasing stocks and cryptocurrencies beginning 90 days after the bill's signed into law.

Then, on March 31, 2027 — two and a half years from now — a more complete ban takes place. Those same politicians, as well as their spouses and any dependent children, would have to sell off all of their stocks within 120 days after that.

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[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

~~Will take me some time to fully digest this but I do wonder if this is too far.~~

~~Apply same trading rules as the private sector? Sure. Limit trades to broad market index funds only? Sure. No trading period? Um, okay, fine. No trades for any family members and sell off all shares? Like wow. Nuclear option. That would actually discourage me from running for Congress and I don't have $10k in investments (retirement funds aside).~~

I take back what I said given that the bill excludes ETFs and mutual funds (not mentioned in the article). Also, after reading the article again I do think it's not strict enough. A fine for violations? So now we're back to making corruption a fee-based service. The penalty should be $1000 for each day the stock is held plus the absolute difference between the purchase and sale price (I don't want them to get the tax benefit either).

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

The penalty should be $1000 for each day the stock is held plus the absolute difference between the purchase and sale price (I don't want them to get the tax benefit either).

Make it triple the absolute difference, plus the base fine. And have that fine specifically go to the DOJ budget. Give them a financial incentive, since it's clearly worked extremely well at getting the cops to go after the drugs.

Otherwise it again is still just a service fee if they get caught.

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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024

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