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Politicians don’t receive money directly from lobbyists and donors. Doing so would be a violation of rules against taking bribes. Lobbyists and donors give mon
by wbsss4412 4y ago
Politicians don’t receive money directly from lobbyists and donors. Doing so would be a violation of rules against taking bribes.
Lobbyists and donors give money to campaigns, which require untold sums of money these days, and a congresspersons power within the party is directly correlated to their ability to fundraise for the party.
As to their actual personal means of a congresspersons wealth, they’re paid fairly high salaries (close to 200k per year, which, despite the expectations of this forum is quite a bit for the US) and yes, they have the ability to engage in their own investments and business dealings on the side. Not to mention their incredibly generous pensions.
- tootallgavin 4y ago> Politicians don’t receive money directly from lobbyists and donors. Doing so would be a violation of rules against taking bribes. > a congresspersons power within the party is directly correlated to their ability to fundraise for the party I agree, trading stocks is an easy, relatively passive way of doing this.
- wbsss4412 4y agoI’m not sure what connection you’re drawing here. The main issue at hand is related to the fact that congresspeople are able to trade stocks on the basis of the insider information they have about upcoming legislation/changes to government policy.
- tootallgavin 4y agoI know. There always going to people smarter than me in more privileged positions than me. It would be weird if said people acted in a way that would incapacitate themselves. (Here, I am referring to the congresspeople) There are laws in place that govern congresspeople's trades. These are ignored. They should be enforced. If congresspeople (or who?) are ignoring/not-enforcing the previous laws, what are they going to do with these new ones?