FEDERAL LAWMAKERS ABOVE THE LAW: PART 2

2011

Federal lawmakers above laws they create for the rest of us.

It is considered against the law for any citizen in our country to benefit from buying or selling publicly traded stocks based on information that is not publicly available.

Guess who among us is not bound to that same law? If you guessed it is our federally elected lawmakers…you win the prize. These folks, who make the laws that we the people have to live under, are allowed to profit by stock trading based on any private insider information that they learn in the course of carrying out the people’s business (or supposedly doing so).

On 60 Minutes on Sunday night a segment came up that was hosted by Steve Croft. The topic was about specific examples of members of congress who had profited personally from insider trading. If you did not watch this show I think it’s worth going to their website to view it. I did some follow up research and came across a book written by a fellow named Peter Schweizer called; “Throw Them All Out”. Mr. Schweizer’s book shares names and actual examples of insider trading by those we have empowered to create the laws for all the rest of us. In one example, he discussed a situation in which Senator John Kerry in 2003 when he was Chairman of the health subcommittee of the Senate’s powerful Finance Committee. According to Mr. Schweizer, during 2003 as the new Medicare prescription drug bill was being considered for Medicare (Part D), Senator Kerry and his wife completed 111 stock transactions of pharmaceutical company’s stocks, 103 which were buy orders. Their capital gains were at least $500,000 and as high as $2 million. Mr. Kerry was not accused of shaping the legislation to benefit his portfolio; he was instead shaping stock trades that anticipated the effects of government policy. Mr. Schweizer goes on to state another example in 2007 when the federal government was weighing whether to limit reimbursements for a particular drug made by Amgen. After the limiting announcement was made, the share prices for this company dropped 15%. Kerry’s wife happened to be a Amgen shareholder but avoided these losses; her shares, valued at between $500,000 and $1 million were unloaded more than a week before the government’s announcement. Both in this book and on 60 Minutes, many others from both parties are accused of similar behavior.

Mr. Schweizer, in an interview regarding why he wrote his book said; “I was troubled by the fact that the political elite get to play by a different set of rules that the rest of us. In the process of researching this book, I came to the conclusion that political party and political philosophy matter a lot less than we think. Washington is a company town, and politics is the business. People wonder why we don’t get more change in Washington, and the reason is that the permanent political class is very comfortable. Business is good.”

For the past couple of years I have been spending considerable time researching and writing my articles on politics. Each day I become increasingly angry. I am furious that those who we elect to represent the best interests of all of we the people and our nation are failing us in every way possible.

Today our nation stands at the edge of a disaster of truly epic proportions. I remain amazed at our inability to unite as citizens against our real enemies…our collective leaders. We all see the same symptoms of our country’s illness and we cannot logically deny that these problems have resulted from decades of mismanagement by those we have elected to represent us in Washington. What we really have failed to acknowledge, in my opinion, is that the most blame has to be aimed at us. We know in our hearts that Washington has become so corrupt that changing the behaviors of the majority we send there is almost impossible. Yet, we keep reelecting the same folks term after term. Or, we stand blindly loyal to our chosen party even if we really do see that those that we elect from each party have long ago abandoned the principles that we believe in. Do we somehow think they will become less corrupt the longer they remain in power? Have we all forgotten the old adage; “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”? Why are we not protesting at the footsteps of the capitol? If we don’t find a way to unite as a citizenry against the ongoing thievery of our nation’s heritage, we will inevitably end up exactly where Thomas Jefferson warned us with his famous quote; “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”.  If I could sell one idea to force real change in our lawmaker’s behavior, it would be for all of us to commit to vote every single incumbent out of office for the next three election cycles. Select a better candidate from your chosen party or just vote for the opposite person running in every national race and in five short years we will have an entirely new set of representatives in power. They might not be any less corruptible, but they will understand that we the people have the power to end the corruption that exists today. I agree with Peter Schweizer; “Throw Them All Out”!

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower
Hendersonville, NC

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Citizens Against Politics As Usual
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