All posts tagged "Stocks"

A quiet change to President Donald Trump's namesake savings program for children amounts to a gift for billionaires, according to an economic analyst.

In an article for The Bulwark on Thursday, economics columnist Catherine Rampell said the Trump administration now allows wealthy donors to stock Trump Accounts with shares of individual companies, which families have no way to turn down. In effect, "our president is helping rich donors offload overvalued stocks onto children, who are forced to hold the stocks for five years whether they want to or not."

Trump Accounts were created by last year's "One Big Beautiful Bill," which set up tax-deferred savings for every American child and seeded newborns' accounts with $1,000 in federal money. The Trump administration recently auto-enrolled every eligible child, pushing participation past 70 million....

At least 62 members of 118th Congress have violated a federal insider trading and conflicts-of-interest law, a Raw Story analysis of congressional financial disclosures reveals.

Most of these violations involve failures to properly disclose stock trades as required by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012. Some involve not abiding by the transparency and personal financial disclosure requirements first outlined in the STOCK Act's post-Watergate predecessor, the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

ALSO READ: 8 ways convicted felon Donald Trump doesn't become president...

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and three other members of Congress appear to have violated federal law by filing late financial disclosures.

Reps. Stephanie Bice (R-OK) and Sean Casten (D-IL), along with Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), were also tardy in reporting investment transactions.

Fetterman this week formally reported 30 corporate bond transactions and one stock sale made on behalf of his dependent children during 2023 — with the oldest transaction reported about 17 months after a federally mandated deadline....

Members of Congress are on a summer stock shopping spree — and still violating a financial disclosure law — amid a reinvigorated movement to ban congressional stock trading.

Three members of the House of Representatives appear to have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act this week by filing required reports late — some as much as two years past a federally mandated deadline.

From Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), more than a dozen other members of Congress continue trading stocks and securities, even in the immediate two weeks after the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act passed out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. ...

But what about Donald Trump’s Truth Social stock?

The former president’s massive financial assets were a primary concern of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) during a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs debate Wednesday over whether Congress should ban federal lawmakers — and presidents — from owning and trading stocks and other investments.

“We don't want people in Congress trading stocks, playing the stock market. That's, if you will, the sheep's clothing over this wolf piece of legislation,” Romney said at the meeting. “What you're not talking about is that this has been drafted in a way that is really quite thoughtless, which is it requires divestiture for people who want to become a congressperson or president or vice president.”...

For 12 years, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has pushed for a ban on congressional stock trading, calling the practice “corrupt,” “unacceptable” and “wrong.”

The first time he and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) presented an amendment in 2012 that would prohibit members of Congress from playing the stock market, they only got 26 votes in support.

Now, Merkley is confident an amended version of the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act has enough bipartisan support that it will come out of a markup meeting with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Wednesday with the votes necessary to present the amendment for a vote....