PUBLIC $ERVICE? – My Congressmans personal wealth* increased 22% the first year he served. His personal wealth increased over $20 million! A member of Congress can expect his or her net worth to increase in eight years by an average of 72.6 percent. For the 49 members who went from a negative net worth to a positive net worth, the average increase was $3.4 million per member. As a comparison, the average citizens wealth DECLINED a percent annually. According to Ballotpedia, “In the midst of tough financial times for average Americans, elected representatives in D.C. are experiencing boom times. There’s discord there. The Personal Gain Index shows through data what many Americans already know. The Index measures the extent to which members of US Congress have prospered during their tenure of public service: The Net Worth Metric Has a politician’s net worth had an abnormal increase? How does the increase in an incumbent’s net worth compare to the increase of other incumbents? How does it compare to the typical U.S. citizen? The K-Street Metric Where did the people hired into a congressional staff previously work? The K Street Metric is a report on how many staffers on each politician’s legislative staff were once employed by a lobbying firm. The Donation Concentration Metric There are two objective measurements in the Donation Concentration Metric. One is the ratio of the top three donors to the incumbent’s campaign committee as a percent of total donations in the most recent applicable election cycle. The other is the ratio of the total dollar contributions from the top donating industry divided by total donations to the candidate. The Stock Oversight and Trades Metric This is a measure of how much of the incumbent’s portfolio is invested in industries over which the incumbent’s committee has oversight authority. It is derived by dividing the value of the investment in the “overseen industries” by the incumbent’s total portfolio value. ballotpedia.org/Personal_Gain_Index_(U.S._Congress) * Scott Peters ranked as the 5th most wealthy representative in 2012. Based on congressional financial disclosure forms and calculations made available by OpenSecrets.org, Peters net worth as of 2012 was estimated between $27,518,090 and $197,415,991. That averages to $112,467,040, which is higher than the average net worth of Democratic representatives in 2012 of $5,700,168.36. Between 2011 and 2012, Peters calculated net worth increased by an average of 22 percent per year. Between 2004 and 2012, the average annual percentage increase for a member of Congress was 15.4 percent. 2013 Peters ranked 179th in the liberal rankings in 2013.[56] Voting with party The website OpenCongress tracks how often members of Congress vote with the majority of the chamber caucus. 2014 -Peters voted with the Democratic Party 83.5 percent of the time, which ranked 180th among the 204 House Democratic members as of July 2014. prweb/releases/2014/07/prweb12037434.htm So how are members of Congress becoming so wealthy? Well, there are lots of ways they are raking in the cash, but one especially alarming thing that goes on is that members of Congress often make investments in companies that will go up significantly if legislation that is being considered by Congress goes the right way. This is called a conflict of interest, but it happens constantly in Congress and nobody seems to get into any trouble for it. The crime of Insider trading is actually legal for members of the US Congress! – Lew Rockwell, 12 Facts About Money and Congress That Are So Outrageous That It Is Hard To Believe That They Are Actually True archive.lewrockwell/rep2/to-get-rich-get-elected.html Peter Schweizer looked at financial transactions made by Representatives and Senators and found that many, including the past three House Speakers, have made deals that appear to be based on non-public informationthat they had access to thanks to their position in Washington. Schweizer calls it honest graft, since many people would consider it unethical, even though its not illegal. How Members of Congress Get Rich Through Honest Graft thewire/national/2011/11/how-members-congress-get-rich-through-honest-graft/44928/
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 14:45:20 +0000