Posted on 04/04/2012 12:00:29 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama called on Wednesday for stricter controls on lawmakers to confront "the corrosive influence" of money in Washington as he signed into law an insider trading ban he said was needed to help restore trust in the U.S. government.
The Democrat, who is running for re-election in November, said the STOCK Act he signed at the White House made plain that members of Congress using non-public information to improve their personal investment portfolios were breaking the law.
Enforcement of the core stock trading disclosure provisions will begin in July.
He also called for more restrictions, saying lawmakers should not be allowed to own stocks in industries they have the power to affect and that people who bundle campaign funds for Congress should not be able to lobby elected representatives.
"The powerful shouldn't get to create one set of rules for themselves and another set of rules for everybody else," Obama said, linking the insider trading legislation to one of his key campaign themes: economic fairness.
"If we expect that to apply to our biggest corporations and to our most successful citizens, it certainly should apply to our elected officials, especially at a time when there is a deficit of trust between this city and the rest of the country," he said.
Obama has been seeking to distance himself from an unpopular and fractious Congress, where Republicans control the House of Representatives and his fellow Democrats have a majority in the Senate. He had called for a tightening of insider trading rules in his State of the Union address in January.
The STOCK Act, which passed the House in February and the Senate in March, specifies that Securities and Exchange Commission prohibitions against trading on non-public information applies to lawmakers and their staff members.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
That's a good one, George!
Corruption in Washington? The Congress? and Obama?
This must be a satire thread....
U.S. President Barack Obama points to the audience after signing the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act in the Eisenhower Executive Office building near the White House in Washington, April 4, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed
They wrote a law to control themselves. No one should believe it or, while it may be against the law there is not penalty for it.
Obama signs ... bill, wants more..."
” wants more curbs on Congress “
But not, evidently, the curbs provided by the Supreme Court - some of whose members show signs of actually having *read* the Constitution....
The country can only believe Congress’ sincerety if it passes a term limits law.
Otherwise, it shall always be suspect.
You could start, President Hussein, by explaining your Birth Certificate forgery, your Selective Service Registration forgery, and your phony Social Security number.
Hypocritical POS SOB.
How can so many people be so ignorant as to believe his posturing and pandering? He should be at 14% approval.
I agree. There must be some kind of loophole.
Unlike SoetorCare ... this douchebag is pure panty waste.
I thought they had arleady addressed that waaay back after Joe Kennedy made his fortune doing it, then after pushed for it to be banned
Only in Washington could a bill that prevents members of Congress from trading on insider information be considered a photo opportunity!
They should never have been doing something in the first place that the rest of us would go to jail for!
Read the article at The Political Commentator here: http://bit.ly/H9b2Iu
Mike Haltman
The Political Commentator
I think that you've summed it up best.
Everything there is “smoke-and-mirrors”, designed to camouflage, conceal, deceive and cover them, and screw us. I trust NOTHING they say or promise anymore, and only watch what they do through their corrupt and criminal legislative process.
“The country can only believe Congress sincerety if it passes a term limits law.
Otherwise, it shall always be suspect.”
I Don’t believe the Federation will ever truly like congress so long as the Federal Government makes any kind of domesic policy. The U.S. is simply too big and diverse to ever “like” the only things the majority there to might compromise on.
Wrong.
Want to bet the first dozen or so congresscritters to be dealt with under this law are Republican, with maybe one useful idiot thrown under the bus for “balance.”
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