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House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

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Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#91

Post by paulcole »

tootallgavin wrote: post #85
paulcole wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s called the Members’ Representational Allowance and is north of $1,000,000 per year. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL30064.pdf

I am sure we could find some Members who think this number inadequate. that number could fund about 8 people's salary per year, is that enough staff to do the job? I don't know

Did you mean to reply to me here?

I was trying to clear up your confusion that staff (and other expenses) were paid out of a congresspersons $150,000 salary (which is also a bit higher than that btw).

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#92

Post by paulryanrogers »

mfer wrote: post #74
Sevii wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do a trade. Congress people get paid 1mil/year adjusted for inflation plus pension, but in return they don't get to own stocks or real estate while they are in office.

> they don't get to own stocks or real estate So, they can't own a home in a location they represent? I don't see that going over well. Your primary home is real estate. So is that little family cottage. Also, congressional reps need to have a home is Washington. So, they have to rent there?

Renting may be a new experience for them. And with such a huge bump in salary I think they can take the hit.

After all it is positioning real estate as investments that contribute to its unaffordability.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#93

Post by zeruch »

_8j50 wrote: post #84
Sevii wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do a trade. Congress people get paid 1mil/year adjusted for inflation plus pension, but in return they don't get to own stocks or real estate while they are in office.

Better Idea: $300k base and a performance bonus up to 100% more based on sponsored laws and an additional 100% for passed laws with an extra 100k for no votes missed or abstained. So a perfectly performing congressperson gets a mil.

I'm not sure about the specifics you outlined, but I do think a comp package that incentivizes grown-ass behavior (read: full attendance, voting, actual participation in the legislative process) is a great idea.

I don't think rewarding certain behaviors like sponsoring is good, because its too easily abused. When a KPI becomes a target, its no longer a KPI.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#94

Post by hedora »

brianwawok wrote: post #58
nostromo wrote: post #51

Hear me out... few people want to run for federal office already. The pay isn't great and it's hard work. If the US was a company, there'd be no question that we'd need to pay our leadership much better to attract top talent. We pay senators $170k a year to manage our country with a $20 trillion economy. So what we end up with is activists who crave power and elites from rich families for whom $170k a year is a round…

Lawmaker pay is a rounding error. Clearly we can't pay lawmakers $0 and expert high effort + no corruption. is there any proof of any way that saying pay from 170k a year to ??? 1 million USD? a year would have any impact on the problems? Do countries with less corrupt lawmakers pay more than the US? I doubt that...

Manchin has made it clear he will happily (and literally) burn the entire planet down for $5M/year.

If lobbying is legal, than bribes should be too.

I'd chip into the "Pay Manchin a ransom of $50M to not do $50T of damage to the planet" fund.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#95

Post by cortesoft »

_8j50 wrote: post #84
Sevii wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do a trade. Congress people get paid 1mil/year adjusted for inflation plus pension, but in return they don't get to own stocks or real estate while they are in office.

Better Idea: $300k base and a performance bonus up to 100% more based on sponsored laws and an additional 100% for passed laws with an extra 100k for no votes missed or abstained. So a perfectly performing congressperson gets a mil.

I don't think number of laws passed is a good performance metric... it is basically like paying developers per line of code.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#96

Post by IX-103 »

tootallgavin wrote: post #52
ch4s3 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senators make $174,000/yr and most are already wealthy before running for election.No one is asking them to give up all income streams outside of their jobs, just to stop trading individual stocks. Senators have a LOT of knowledge about things that will effect stock prices that is outside of the public realm. Trading on that knowledge is a clear violation of public trust.

> just to stop trading individual stocks Why? Is buying a particular car not an investment? what about a house? Buying and selling assets should not be criminalized. Having privileged knowledge is part of the game. Someone who cannot read and write is going to have a tough time in life. Insider trading is already illegal. Also, investing in a publicly traded company is a weird way of violating public trust. Its as if…

It's not insider trading if a congressman does it. That's the problem.

And the public do not know what their politicians are investing in. Congressmen are supposed to report their trades within 45 days, but that's too long to make a difference in something like the current stock market.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#98

Post by evan_ »

tootallgavin wrote: post #53
ziddoap wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So should all politicians receive money exclusively from lobbyists/donors? Or I guess they should go get paycheck jobs somewhere? Am I mistaken? I thought most political position are paid positions. Currently north of $150,000 USD for members of congress, I think?

And so how do these members of congress pay for staffing, research, etc? with just 150K per year?

There's a body called the Congressional Research Service that puts together reports on anything and everything at the request of congresspeople:

https://crsreports.congress.gov/

You can also read them, they're pretty comprehensive and exhaustively cited.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#99

Post by evan_ »

tootallgavin wrote: post #63
epgui wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where does a politicians money come from? They have an annual salary.

What about the salaries of the staff? What about the tools needed to perform the job?

They get a budget. They're not schoolteachers.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#100

Post by dragonwriter »

ziddoap wrote: post #34
tootallgavin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should all politicians receive money exclusively from lobbyists/donors? Or I guess they should go get paycheck jobs somewhere? Where does a politicians money come from? If they exclusively received their money from stock trading as opposed to lobbyists/donors, how do you think the policy decisions would change?

> So should all politicians receive money exclusively from lobbyists/donors? Or I guess they should go get paycheck jobs somewhere? Am I mistaken? I thought most political position are paid positions. Currently north of $150,000 USD for members of congress, I think?

> I thought most political position are paid positions

I think the vast majority of US elected positions are unpaid or have a small nominal stipend, but, yes, federal elected officials are all paid (the salary, and even more the total comp, are...pretty minimal compared to the private sector for the kind of responsibilities involved.)

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