Congress members care more about their PORTFOLIOS than their constituents

April 13, 2024

Anna Moneymaker / Staff, Bill Clark / Contributor, Ethan Miller / Staff | Getty Images

CEO/Founder

Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

American families are struggling more today than they have in a very long time, but guess whose portfolios are not struggling? Members of Congress. Is that fair? Is that why we sent them to Washington?

Wealth redistribution is a con. Money doesn’t flow from the billionaires to people in the middle and lower classes. It flows to the people writing the laws.

The newest Blaze Originals documentary, “Bought and Paid For: How Politicians Get Filthy Rich,” debuted on Tuesday, and I am still shocked that we are the only ones addressing this topic head-on. You should watch it. This is something that we need to fix because the soul of our country is being tainted. Our members of Congress have been compromised, and they are voting on policies that prefer their portfolios over their constituents.

The term “redistribution of wealth” has been the rallying cry of radical leftists for more than a century. From Karl Marx to the Bolsheviks and Mao, they all stated, in their own ways, that they wanted to take money from one group of people and give it to another group of people. The popular campaign catchphrase paraded by the left, “An economy for everyone,” is the utopian — or dystopian — end goal of this wealth redistribution. But who did leftists actually mean by “everyone”? Where was all the money going?

In the Soviet Union, members of the working class didn't improve their station in life. It was the political class that got rich and reaped all the rewards. Mao, while millions were starving to death, had his own indoor swimming pool. “An economy for everyone!” That phrase is now being used as the rallying cry by some of the most powerful political institutions and elected officials in the country right now.

We wonder why people like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi stay in office for 927 years. Why leave? There’s too much money to be made.

Hillary Clinton campaigned on creating an “economy that works for everyone.” The country's largest progressive think tank, American Progress, has a policy plan for “building an economy for all.” Moreover, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants us all to know that “congressional Democrats will build an economy that works for everyone, not just the elites.”

But who are these elites they keep talking about? Every time this rhetoric has been used in the past, whether that be in Russia, China, Cuba, or Venezuela, the elites became the people writing the laws. They were the ones that got rich.

History has shown that the redistribution of wealth is a con. Money doesn’t flow from the billionaires to people in the middle and lower classes. It flows to the people writing the laws.

How did you do at the stock market last year? The S&P 500 did well, closing out the year with a 24% gain. Though you can’t actually invest in the S&P 500 as a whole, you can invest in an exchange traded fund called SPY. SPY tracks the overall S&P 500 performance, so most of the people like you and me, if you invested, saw a 24% return last year.

There are experts who track the S&P 500 and the SPY ETF for a living. According to public records, however, certain individuals “out-experted” the experts. One of these supposed financial geniuses saw a 238% return last year and beat out the experts at the SPY EFT by 200%. How is that even possible? What is this person's secret?

Others in this select group of trading gurus out-traded the SPY EFT by 40% at a minimum. Who are these financial gurus? Because I want to find out their secret. They must be a collection of financial geniuses doing crazy nerdy calculations.

It turns out that these financial geniuses are none other than Brian Higgings (D-N.Y.), Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) among other members of Congress. I know they hold the power of the purse, but I don’t think this is quite what the framers had in mind.

How is Dan Crenshaw destroying the SPY EFT’s performance? Did they teach advanced stock trading during Hell Week in SEAL training? Members of Congress have gotten so good at picking stocks that people are now following their moves rather than hiring a professional stockbroker. You can find websites like this one that monitor Nancy Pelosi's purchases. Who needs a professional anymore? Just copy the financial genius of your local congressman.

It is no secret why members of Congress suddenly become financial whiz kids once they get elected. I'm not directly pointing the finger at anyone and saying they did anything illegal, but two words sum up all this behavior: insider trading.

ABC News in 2011 exposed how Visa attempted to bribe Nancy Pelosi as critical credit card legislation was being debated in Congress. It noted how Visa offered her an IPO while the bill was making its way through Congress.

Lawmakers, as it now stands, can hold private meetings with corporate representatives whilelegislation is being debated that could help or hurt them, giving lawmakers the opportunity to turn around and make stock moves based on that information. According to the same ABC News story, “This form of insider trading is one of the reasons why there are so many wealthy members of Congress.”

None of this is a secret, even though both Republicans and Democrats try to downplay it in the public eye. What makes this even crazier is that if you or I did that we’d go to jail. But Congress has a loophole. According to Loyola University:

If you are a member of Congress, there is a loophole. … There isn’t a limit on lawmakers trading stocks based on classified information nor is there oversight regarding the trades that lawmakers are allowed to make based on other information they are privy to as part of their job.

Is this how Congress is beating the market? Members know all the chess moves before anyone else does. They’ve read the other team's playbook before the game was played. But you and I are not allowed to.

We wonder why people like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi stay in office for 927 years. Why leave? There’s too much money to be made — but not for the average American.

We wonder why our country is kept in a constant state of war. Is there any incentive for Congress to stop forever wars when it's allowed to invest in military industrial complex corporations like Lockheed and Raytheon?

We wonder why the government wants more control of health care and why they’re doing such a hasty transition to unreliable energy. But how many congresspeople currently hold medical and green energy stocks?

While people like Nancy Pelosi scream about the top 1% and how the rich need to redistribute to the poor, this is the system they really care about. This is the “economy for everyone.”

VP debate recap: A Vance victory

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This might have been the most consequential VP debate in recent memory.

For those of you who missed the debate, it was a decisive victory for J.D. Vance and the Trump-Vance team as a whole. Vance presented a calm, collected, and considerate side of the Republican party that compliments Trump and helps to make their platform more palatable. Meanwhile, Tim Walz had a lackluster, though certainly not catastrophic, night. He had a few embarrassing gaffes and came across as overly nervous, but like Vance, kept it civil.

Both VP candidates entered the stage as relative unknowns to most Americans, and by the end, both men had given an accurate representation of their characters. Here is a brief recap just in case you missed the debate:

J.D. Vance looked great

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

Vance came out of the gate swinging, with a stellar opening statement that helped set the stage for the rest of the debate. He delivered a concise yet compelling recap of his life, which framed him as everything Walz claims to be: a relatable veteran from humble beginnings who earned his position through hard work and service. He then went on to deliver a clear and palatable defense of Trump's platform and mission while cooly drawing attention to the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.

Overall, J.D. Vance looked incredibly presidential. He presented himself not just as a capable vice president, but as a strong successor to Trump and as a valid replacement if anything should happen to the former president between now and the end of his hypothetical second term. Vance also successfully dispelled the notion that he is "weird" as Walz called him, and if anyone looked strange during the debate, it certainly wasnot Vance.

Tim Walz's gaffes

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

While Tim Walz certainly didn't have an awful night, he did not stack up well against Vance. Walz had a major gaffe around halfway through the debate when asked to explain the change in his position on assault weapon bans. Walz then claimed that he had befriended school shooters during his time in office. While that was clearly not the intention of what he was saying, it was embarrassing nonetheless.

Another weak moment was when the moderators asked Walz to explain a claim he had made regarding being in Hong Kong during the infamous Tiananmen Square protest in 1989, which has since been proven false. Walz gave a long-winded, rambling answer about taking students to visit China and how Trump should have joined in on those trips, before being called out by the moderator for dodging the question.

Vance fact-checked the fact-checkers

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

One of the conditions of the CBS debate was that the moderators would not fact-check the debaters live, but instead rely on after-the-matter fact-checking. But, CBS couldn't keep to its own rules. While Vance was describing the migrant crisis that has swelled during the Biden-Harris administration, one of the CBS moderators, Margaret Brennan, chimed in with a "fact check." She claimed that the Haitian migrants in Ohio have legal status, to which Vance clapped back by calling Brennan out for breaking the rules of the debate, then proceeded to correct her, explaining that they only had legal status due to overreach by the Biden-Harris administration.

Dockworker strike: Everything you need to know

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

At midnight on September 30th, dockworkers across the East Coast went on strike, effectively cutting the country's import and export capabilities in half.

Don't go out and panic buy a pallet of toilet paper and instant ramen just yet. It's going to take some time for the full effects of the strike to be felt and hopefully, the strike will be good and over by then. But there are no guarantees, and this election cycle could get significantly more insane as we draw near to the election. And even if the strike is settled quickly, it shows growing cracks in our infrastructure and industrial capacity that needs to be addressed if America wants to maintain its global dominance.

Here is everything you need to know about the dockworker strike:

What do the dockworkers want?

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

As with most strikes, pay is the driving factor behind this situation the country now finds itself in. The longshoremen want more pay, and with rising inflation who can blame them? After all, working the docks is hard and dangerous business, and fair compensation only seems... fair. But when you compare the wage of a dockworker, which is around $100,000 to $200,00 a year to the average income in America of $56,000, suddenly they seem significantly less sympathetic.

How much money are they asking for? For most Americans, a three percent raise is considered high, but the unions are asking up to 15 percent, depending on location. On top of that, they are asking for a 77 percent raise over the next six years. The West Coast dock workers recently made off with a 36 percent raise and were considered lucky. These increases in costs are just going to be transferred to the end consumer, and we'll likely see a jump in prices if these terms are accepted.

The other major ticket item is protection against automation. Autonomous ports are quickly becoming a reality, with major ports in China that are capable of handling vast amounts of cargo being run by a single office, not an army of dock workers. Naturally, the longshoremen are concerned that their jobs are at risk of being replaced by machines that can work harder, longer, for cheaper, and without risk of injury.

How will it affect Americans?

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

Don't panic yet!

It is going to take some time for consumers to feel the effects of the strike and it is possible that a resolution could happen at any time.

Week one should be pretty much business as usual. It might be a good idea to stock up on fruit and other perishables, but there is no need to go COVID-lockdown-crazy yet.

Week two is when you'll first start feeling the pinch. Fresh fruits and veggies will become scarce, along with other imported goods like shoes, toys, and TVs. Prices will start to creep up as the shelves will start to look a little sparse. The supply of tools, lumber, and other hardware materials will also begin to dry up.

By week three, the cracks in the system will really start to show. Entire industries will begin to slow down, or even stop. Factory workers will get furloughed and sent home without pay. Stores will have to ration items, prices will be sky-high, and online orders will come to a standstill. At this point, the strike will have escalated into a full-blown crisis, and even if it was resolved immediately, it would still take weeks to restore everything to working order.

At the four-week mark, the situation will have developed into a national security crisis, and as Glenn describes, a poly-crisis. Small business will be closing their doors, entire brands will be out of stock, and everything that remains will be so expensive it is unaffordable. By this point, the holiday season will be drawing near and there will be a rush on any sort of gift or decor items left. At this point, irreparable damage to our economy will have occurred and it will be months if not years before it can be mended.

While that sounds bleak, with the election just around the corner, it seems unlikely that the Biden-Harris administration will let it get that bad. That being said, their administration has not been characterized by good decision-making and reasonable policy, so there are no guarantees.

What can be done?

The Washington Post / Contributor | Getty Images

The big question is "Why hasn't Biden already done something?"

President Biden, who ran on the image of a blue-collar, union-worker, has been uncharacteristically absent from the issue. Despite his earlier involvement in a train strike, Biden has declared that involvement in union fights is not a presidential issue unless it getsreally bad.

So where's the line? At what point will he step in? He has to understand that an economic crisis right before the election will reflect poorly on Kamala.

Join Glenn TONIGHT for BlazeTV's exclusive VP debate coverage!

Anna Moneymaker / Staff, Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Join Glenntonight for Vice Presidential debate coverage you do not want to miss!

Tonight is the first (and only) Vice Presidential debate, and it will be hosted by CBS News. But don't be reliant on CBS News or any other mainstream media channel for their biased coverage. Join the BlazeTV live stream tonight to get the uncensored truth alongside top-quality commentary from Glenn and the rest of the world-class panel.

Glenn is joined by Megyn Kelly, Liz Wheeler, Allie Beth Stuckey, Steve Deace, Jill Savage, Dave Landau, and more to cover the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate. Blaze Media subscribers gain access to live chat with the fantastic panel of hosts! If you subscribe today by visiting BlazeTV.com/debate you will get $40 off of your annual subscription with code DEBATE. This is the largest discount ever offered, so take advantage NOW!

See you TONIGHT at 8 PM ET for an event you do NOT want to miss it!

POLL: Can the VP debate affect the election?

DOMINIC GWINN / Contributor, Dia Dipasupil / Staff | Getty Images

The first (and likely only) Vice President debate will be held on CBS News on Tuesday, October 1st.

The debate takes place at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and will be the first time we see J.D. Vance and Tim Walz face off in person. Typically, the VP debate is little more than a formality, and rarely does it affect the election in any significant way. But this is no ordinary election. The stakes are higher than they have been in years, and Trump and Harris are still in a razor-thin race, according to the polls. Both Vance and Walz are relative newcomers to the national stage and still have room to make an impression on the American people, and with the race as tight as it is, that might make all the difference.

So what do you think? Can this VP debate make an impact on the election? Are you going to tune in? And what sort of questions and issues need to be brought up? Let us know in the poll below:

Glenn's Show Prep