Honest graft

Listen to Dave Ross Commentary: Honest Graft

The latest Politico poll shows most Americans wouldn’t friend Congress it if begged them; its DIS-approval rating is 83 percent. And yet, as happens almost every Sunday night, just when you thought you couldn’t be more outraged with Congress, here comes 60 Minutes:

“There are all sorts of forms of honest grafts that Congressmen engage in that allow them to become very, very wealthy,” said Peter Schweizer.

Honest Graft! Who knew such a thing existed? Peter Schweizer, that’s who. A researcher at the Hoover Institution, Schweizer suspects that members of Congress have been making stock trades based on which industries will win or lose as a result of the laws they’re writing.

Which they can do LEGALLY because it turns out that when Congress passed laws prohibiting corporate executives, judges, and presidents from insider trading, it exempted ITSELF!

So when House Speaker John Boehner’s financial adviser trades health care stocks during the health care debate, and when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi buys a bank IPO while Congress is debating credit card rules, it’s all legal, even if they used inside tips that would have gotten Martha Stewart perp-walked. That’s not to say they DID use any such information:

“It’s not true and that’s that,” said Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi would never do that, neither would John Boehner:

“I do not do it, haven’t done it and wouldn’t do it.”

And yet when retired Congressman Brian Baird proposed a bill that would make such trades illegal, just to eliminate all doubt, it got all of six sponsors:

“It still baffles me,” said Baird.

But does it really?

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