Brian Deese, a top economic advisor to President Joe Biden and head of the National Economic Council, says that a ban on stock trading by members of Congress is "sensible" and would restore faith in our institutions.
The comments were in response to CNBC's "Squawk Box" host Andrew Sorkin asking Deese what he thought about banning members from trading individual stocks. Executive branch employees are not allowed to trade individual stocks.
Deese said that the restrictions on the executive branch are significant. There is no engagement on individual stock transactions.
He went on to praise the idea more broadly. I think that's reasonable. It's a rule that we all operate by and live by in the executive branch, and it doesn't put any real burden on our ability to do our jobs.
The goal of restoring faith and trust in American political institutions is what Deese said restrictions on stock trades are for.
He said there was a lot of distrust and distrust around politics. "Restoring faith in our institutions is one of the things that we need to do across the board, whether that be Congress and the legislative branch, whether that be the Fed and so on and so forth and so anything we can do to try to restore that faith, I think makes a lot
bryan metzger is on the phone.
The White House did not respond to a query from Insider about which policy proposals it supports to strengthen the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, also known as the STOCK Act. The 2012 law allows members of Congress and their top staff to trade stocks but requires them to regularly report their trades and other ways they earn money outside of their congressional salaries.
In December, Insider published "Conflicted Congress," a five-month long investigation that found dozens of lawmakers and 182 senior congressional staffers had violated the STOCK Act by failing to properly report their stock trades.
Insider reached out to the White House to let them know about the findings of the investigation. When the STOCK Act was signed into law, Biden was the vice president. The law was important to restoring faith in government, said Obama at the time.
The White House didn't reply to requests to comment on what Congress should do. Biden promised to work with Congress to pass legislation to prevent self-enrichment via personal financial holdings.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have proposed a slew of bills to ban stock trading in recent days, including a pair of competing proposals unveiled on Wednesday by Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat of Georgia.
Ossoff is co-sponsoring a proposal that would force members to put their stock in a blind trust. It's similar to the House's TRUST in Congress Act.
According to a spokesman for the congresswoman, she was very encouraged by Deese's comments this morning and is excited about the growing momentum behind this push.
A bill will be introduced by a Minnesota Democrat that will ban lawmakers from holding individual stocks in blind trusts.
At a press conference in December, Pelosi was asked about a ban.
We are a free-market economy. She said that they should be able to participate.
Kevin McCarthy is in favor of curtailing stock-trading by lawmakers.
The chairman of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence endorsed a ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks.
Members should not play in the market. Warner told Alan that if he took these jobs and responsibility, he would have to give up something.
"It looks bad even if you're not doing anything wrong," he said.
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