Would you vote for a ban on Congress members trading stocks? This is one of those stupid things that I've been dragged through the mud on, because Jesse Watters had basically insinuated that I was insider trading when I vote for. Yeah, sure. Who cares? Who cares? [00:00:15] It doesn't doesn't matter to me because I don't have any money to put in the stock market. Seems like you care. Seems like you care a lot. That was Republican congressman from Texas, Dan Crenshaw. Poor widow. Baby. Congressman Dan Crenshaw. [00:00:30] He's worried lawmakers like him might be banned from trading individual stocks. Now, if you're hoping that such legislation passes, please don't hold your breath. But it doesn't matter. The mere mention of such legislation really did set Congressman Crenshaw off. [00:00:46] So look, let me explain. Back in July, there was this bipartisan group of senators who had proposed legislation that would ban stock trading, individual stock trading among lawmakers, their spouses and their dependent children. [00:01:02] I mean, the idea of like a miner, you know, doing day trading or trading individual stocks like amazes me, but I'm sure it happens. Now it was called the Ethics Act or ending trading and holdings in congressional stocks. [00:01:18] And so the Democratic co-sponsors for this bill included senators like Jeff Merkley, Gary Peters and Jon Ossoff. On the Republican side, you have Josh Hawley, who has really taken the mantle of economic populism on the right specifically. [00:01:35] And so when NPR asked about the bill, Senator Merkley said the following quote, if you want to serve in Congress, don't come here to serve your portfolio, come here to serve the people. And that's absolutely right. Now, here's why. [00:01:50] It's an issue when people are trading individual stocks in Congress. Remember, these are people who make decisions about regulations and if they are heavily invested in an industry or in a company that could see their profits impacted through the regulations [00:02:10] that Congress is considering, it's less likely that that Congress member is going to support the regulations or the policy. There's also the issue of insider trading, because, remember, members of Congress have all sorts of closed door briefings where information that we [00:02:26] are not privy to is shared with them. And so with that information, they could very easily trade individual stocks, knowing that, you know, the value of the shares for one company might go up or down. And so Merkley also said that the public is absolutely united [00:02:44] in saying stock trading is wrong. Merkley said, pointing to a University of Maryland poll indicating 85% of the public backed banning trading by members of Congress. So I want to be specific because legislation wasn't about, oh, you're not allowed to invest in the stock market at all. [00:03:02] It's just that, hey, trading individual stocks like stocks belonging to a specific company or companies, that's the issue here. So, you know, maybe a mutual fund, you know, maybe an ETF. That's fine. But we really do want to stop the practice of trading individual stocks in Congress. [00:03:22] So in 2012 the so-called Stock Act was implemented, which basically requires lawmakers and their spouses to just simply disclose when they trade individual stocks over $1,000 within 45 days. [00:03:38] And it's it's not about banning members of Congress from engaging in any corruption or conflicts of interest. It's not about that. It was simply about being more transparent with the American people in regard to what these politicians are actually financially invested in. [00:03:54] But the problem with this law is the fact that it's not really enforced, and the enforcement mechanisms really have no teeth. So even though this was a law that was passed and implemented in 2012, we have seen the stock portfolios of members of Congress really explode. [00:04:12] I mean, I think Nancy Pelosi gets a lot of heat for this because she tends to outperform the S&P 500. Gee, I wonder why. How could that happen? So several lawmakers made large profits after trading financial services stocks [00:04:30] before major banks began to fold. Those trades raised questions about whether they were profiting from information they learn on congressional committees. I am going to go ahead and speculate that, yeah, [00:04:45] it seems like that's been happening. In fact, there was a big story during the coronavirus pandemic where senators who had a closed door A briefing on the severity of coronavirus immediately went and started like buying stock for things like zoom, [00:05:02] you know, video conferencing companies, things like that. And they did this before the general public was made aware of how severe the pandemic was going to be. They did this before the lockdowns and the shutdowns happened. So, I mean, I'm not an idiot, right? [00:05:18] Like that looks super fishy. That looks suspicious. And so I think that instance is what really turned people on to the fact that there's more corruption going on in Congress than we previously thought, that these conflicts of interest run deep. [00:05:34] And so, Senator Merkley says, the fact that members of Congress do better than a generalized portfolio suggests that there's privileged information that folks here about may not be inside information. Maybe it's early information, maybe it's an insight that comes from [00:05:49] working on a sector through your committee work or so on and so forth. But that's an issue and I'm going to go ahead and agree with him. So with all of that in mind, I think we should now jump to the rest of what Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw was saying during [00:06:07] this interview on the Free Press. Let's take a look. Would you vote for a ban on Congress members trading stocks? Yeah. I mean, this is like number 1000 on my priority list of things to care about. This is one of those stupid things that I've been dragged through the mud on. [00:06:25] You know how much money I've ever had in the stock market? About $20,000. And yet I've been dragged through the mud on this as if, like, there's some insider trading. I sent a I sent a letter to Fox News, you know, a threatening letter from my lawyers, threatening them with defamation because they. [00:06:43] Because Jesse Watters had basically insinuated that I was insider trading. Of course it's not true. You'd be more surprised how much little we information we have. How much little information you have. Like, you know, they have closed door briefings and committee meetings [00:07:00] where they share information all the time. I mean, at least when they do show up to work, I say that because Congress isn't really in session much of the year. But okay, so is he also suggesting that members of Congress pass bills with little information? [00:07:17] I mean, I'm not buying it at all. Also, according to Capital Trades, which tracks members of Congress based on their legally mandated stock disclosures and filings. Dan Crenshaw does, in fact, have more than $20,000 in the stock market. [00:07:35] So, as you see from this graphic, he has about $161,000 invested. That's a lot of money for ordinary Americans. So I'm not trying to minimize that amount of money. But I will be fair to Dan Crenshaw and note that compared to the literal [00:07:52] millionaires who have tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the stock market. Yeah. I mean, he's on the lower end of the scale. Okay. So he probably didn't take kindly to being targeted by anybody when it comes to this particular issue. [00:08:07] But the fact remains that the issue is a problem. And I personally don't appreciate the fact that he downplayed how much money he has invested. It's not 20,000, it's 161,000. Now here's more of what he had to say. Take a look. [00:08:23] So sure. Yeah. Why not? Don't let us trade stocks. How about. How about. How about we'll just keep whipping ourselves? Let's. How about we don't make any money either? How about let's just cut our paychecks? I haven't gotten a pay raise since 2008. It's always some member, right? Who, like who? Who senses the populist energy and then and then mirrors it, [00:08:42] believing that this is what's going to help me connect with the people. Because what do the people want? Well, I mean, they want an easy button. All my problems will be solved. If there's if there's no stock trading. All my problems will be solved if there's term limits. Yeah, but if you think about any of these things for five whole minutes, [00:09:00] you know, you might quickly come to a different conclusion. Now, again, what I vote for. Yeah, sure. Who cares? Who cares? It doesn't. Doesn't matter to me because I don't have any money to put in the stock market. It seems. It seems like you care. [00:09:15] It matters to you a lot. You're very annoyed by this. And by the way, like members of Congress make $174,000 a year, assuming they're not in a leadership position. So I know the speaker of the House makes over $200,000 a year, but ordinary rank and file members of Congress $174,000 a year. [00:09:32] Okay, he complains about not getting a raise since 2008. Well, you know, congressional lawmakers haven't passed a minimum wage increase for the American people, for American workers since 2008, either. So spare me your tears about how you haven't gotten a raise since 2008. [00:09:51] All right. Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25. Okay. So, like, the median income for an average American is just $59,000 a year. This guy is sitting there like, collecting $174,000 a year [00:10:08] while simultaneously whining to people who, you know, make around $59,000, or if you're a minimum wage worker, you're literally making, in some cases, in states that don't have a higher minimum wage law, $7.25 an hour. [00:10:23] I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous. And let's also just talk about the perks that members of Congress get. Right. Perks that ordinary Americans would have to pay for, perks that the American taxpayer funds on behalf of these lawmakers who do little for us, who consistently have insanely low approval ratings [00:10:43] because of the dog and pony show that we all have to deal with their BS congressional hearings that aren't really put on in order to do like a fact finding mission to pass good legislation. It's all about theater. People hate Congress because they don't work for us, [00:10:59] yet they collect six figure salaries and get these massive, these massive benefits. So what am I talking about when I talk about these massive benefits? Okay, so although pensions, as we all know, are increasingly uncommon for ordinary, hard working Americans, they're really not a thing of the past [00:11:16] when it comes to lawmakers. In fact, their pensions are real generous. So since 1946, members of Congress with at least five years of service or federal employment are eligible for a generous pension that pays 2 to 3 times more than pensions offered to similarly [00:11:35] salaried workers in the private sector. And that's according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, now a lesser known congressional benefit. A little perk they get is the practice of leaving death gratuity payments to their heirs or members who die while serving in office, equal to the members [00:11:55] yearly congressional salary. The payments are provided regardless of how wealthy the deceased lawmaker was from 2000 to 2021. In just that one year period, the payments have cost American taxpayers $5 million. [00:12:11] But wait, there's more. What other perks? What other benefits do these members of Congress get? Well, the majority of their flights are free. Along with free airport parking, free on site gym, good health benefits paid for by US taxpayers, of course, and an excellent retirement plan. [00:12:29] Members of Congress each receive a quarter million dollars annually for travel and office expenses. There's $900,000 for each representative to hire staff, and $3.5 million for each senator per year. Okay, so, the best perk, in my opinion, [00:12:49] for members of Congress is the fact that they don't really need to work. I'm not even kidding. Compared to an ordinary American worker, members of Congress do very little. Now, what do I mean by that? Let's take a look at how much time they get off every year. [00:13:05] So I looked at the yearly calendar. I looked at every day. Congress was in session for every month. And here's what I found. And this is on Congress.gov. You guys can check it for yourselves. House lawmakers worked a whopping 13 days this month. [00:13:22] Nine days in October, 15 days in September, nine days in August. Although I should say that these sessions are super limited because they're not even supposed to work in August at all, they usually get August off 14 days in July, 14 days in June. [00:13:38] Ooh, 16 days in May. Look at these workhorses go 16 days in April, 15 days in March, 14 days in February, 14 days in January. I'd like to ask the viewers, please write in. Share your comment below. How many days did you work? [00:13:56] No. More importantly, how many paid days off did you get this year? So they're scheduled to get all of December off, by the way. So that's another thing. They make $174,000 to work a total of 149 days out of the out of the year. [00:14:14] Out of the year that that makes that means that they make $1,167 each day. Congress is in session. Do you make that much money? So please explain to me why we should sit here and listen to a congressman [00:14:30] like Dan Crenshaw cry about how he hasn't gotten a raise since 2008. Okay. Assuming that they work eight hours a day on the days they actually do work. Well, their hourly wage turns out to be $145, while minimum wage for Americans is $7.25. [00:14:50] If they're not living in a state that has managed to increase their state minimum wage. Now, maybe Crenshaw is bad with money because as he cries and cries about how broke he is making nearly $200,000 a year. You know, there are other members of Congress [00:15:05] who make the same amount of money. Come into Congress as middle class people, but then leave tremendously wealthy. How does that happen? Well, the truth is that many congressional lawmakers get super rich working in Congress despite their salaries. So members of Congress are not allowed to continue in their prior jobs [00:15:21] while working on Capitol Hill, although their net worth continues to increase through investments in 2020. More than half of the 535 lawmakers in Congress were listed as millionaires, and the average increase in the net worth of [00:15:40] lawmakers after entering office is 114%. I leave you with this. Back in July, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, the Republican who co-sponsored the bill to ban individual stock trading by lawmakers, [00:15:57] was asked if Republicans would make good on their promise to block a floor vote of the Ethics Act. And here's his response. It was telling, quote, GOP colleagues don't want to vote against it. What they don't want to do is to have to vote at all. [00:16:15] I'm going to go ahead and guess that Representative Dan Crenshaw falls into that camp, into that category. Hey, thanks for watching the video. We really appreciate it, guys, and we appreciate it if you become members, because that allows us to be independent, honest, progressive, all the things that you don't get from corporate media [00:16:32] and all of that is because of you guys. 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