Texas Governor and Recent Presidential Candidate Rick Perry

Many go to Washington to do good, and some end up doing very well indeed.

Rick Perry was recovering from back surgery when he entered the Presidential race in 2011, and later would admit that he was surprised at how the pain and the medicine had affected his performance on the campaign trail and in the debates. Not a surprise to those of us who have found ourselves in the same situation. In the arena we naturally conflate effort with the quality of our results, when the correlation is often not there at all. He left us a quiet present shortly before bowing out, an editorial decrying Congressional corruption that was published in RedState: Stop Insider Trading Dead In Its Tracks.

Congress, by its very nature, is a difficult body of people to bring under a meaningful rule of law. Ex-Capitol Police are full of stories of how stopping a member for drunken driving or physical assault led almost invariably to dropped charges for the Member and a reprimand for the officer. Evidence does not matter in these cases, just protecting the Member from their own irresponsibility. The good news is that, despite all, somehow we find Capitol Police who have the integrity to actually do the job regardless. At least until they’ve seen enough of the reality and move on.

Citing an editorial at the Chicago Tribune here, Governor Perry points to a story:

“’60 Minutes’ reported that Pelosi and her husband participated in an initial public offering from Visa in 2008, just as credit card legislation started moving through the House. The Pelosis bought 5,000 shares at the IPO price of $44 a share. Two days later, the shares traded at $64. The legislation, which was likely to cut credit card company profits, went nowhere that year. It passed two years later.”

It’s not enough members of Congress make $174,000 a year, some are trading on inside information to use their public service to enrich themselves.

The Tribune is right, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department should be using every available tool to put a stop to this. But they are not. So, Congress needs to pass the STOCK Act as a matter of urgency, to do even more to ensure that this kind of thing is stopped dead in its tracks.

Having watched the parade of humble public servants come to Washington to do good over the decades, it is remarkable how many of them do very well indeed. Shortly before running across Gov. Perry’s piece, I heard an interview with Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, who has recently authored Throw Them All Out, a book in which he explores how our bi-partisan Congress engages in insider trading with no concern for being tripped up by the Department of Justice or Congressional Ethics Committees. The laws are on the books, and have been used in the past, but it has been a long time since we had an Attorney General was willing to face the fire on a case more complex than simple bribery. How bad is it, really? I leave you with Gov. Perry’s closing paragraph:

We have a $15 trillion national debt that is growing by the day, a direct result of establishment, insider politicians who are more interested in constantly increasing their personal power and profit than in reforming the system, bringing spending under control, and doing the work they were elected to do. It’s time to uproot and overhaul Washington. We can start with ensuring insider trading by members of Congress results in prison time, and not unseemly profits.

This post originates at Rolling it up the Hill

Related posts:

1. Erick Erickson Blames “The Tea Party” for Rick Perry’s Failure
2. “Occupy Wall Street” Political Agenda Revealed… Global Tax!
3. A Political Establishment Without Memory