For members of Congress, insider trading is just a perk

Opinion: November 24, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: On Tuesday, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published Peter Schweizer’s “Throw Them All Out.” Normally, 224-page tracts by political think-tank fellows sink without a trace.

But this one got the full “60 Minutes” treatment on CBS Sunday night, as if it were some kind of celebrity or political tell-all. Which, in a way, it is.

John Boehner! Nancy Pelosi! John Kerry! Spencer Bachus and more, Republicans and Democrats alike, all with inside information about pending government actions, all of whom, Mr. Schweizer suggests, benefited from amazingly well-timed investment decisions tied to those actions.

“There are all sorts of forms of honest grafts that congressmen engage in that allow them to become very, very wealthy,” Mr. Schweizer told Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes.” “So it’s not illegal, but I think it’s highly unethical. I think it’s highly offensive and wrong.”

We’d have to agree with him.

Special exemption

So many scams, so little time. It turns out that members of Congress are exempt from the kind of insider-trading rules that could send lesser mortals to prison. So are their staffs. So are lobbyists.

So it was entirely legal for congressional leaders to make personal investment decisions after attending a critical meeting in September 2008 when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned them that Wall Street was about to collapse.

Mr. Boehner’s financial disclosures indicate that the very next day, he cashed out of a fund designed to profit from inflation. Sen. Dick Durbin’s, D-Ill., records show that he cashed out $40,000 in mutual funds and parked the money with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Co. Mr. Bachus, R-Ala., now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, went short on the American economy and cashed in.

All later said no tips were involved. Like an apocalyptic warning from the treasury secretary isn’t a tip?

It’s like free airport parking — just a little perk that proves how special they are.

The right and left alike should be able to agree: It’s time to hear the debate and call the roll.