1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

I write to you today troubled about the reports surrounding the potential legislation regarding congressional stock trading. I write to you in dissatisfaction as to the opaque, unclear, and frankly undemocratic nature of allowing our representatives to gamble on the very markets they regulate. I am a physician, and a holder of a Master’s in Bioethics. I have spent my adult life training to serve the public, and I believe that public service is a privilege that demands the highest ethical standards. The layperson who sees a government official profiting from specific industries, while we are hard pressed to afford living in this fair country, will be hard pressed to not see that as corruption. To allow members of Congress to trade individual stocks is to accept a terribly optimistic view of human nature that I and the rest of the populace do not share. If the data is there, and the opportunity to profit from non-public information exists, the temptation is too great. I believe you have a choice in front of you. You must ban members of Congress from investing in individual stocks entirely. Instead, members should be restricted to investing only in broad market index funds, similar to the ETFs that most Americans rely upon for their own tenuous financial futures. This ensures that your financial wellbeing rises and falls with the country as a whole, not with the fortunes of specific corporations you may be investigating or subsidizing. Furthermore, for those who choose to defy these rules and trade illicitly, the penalty must be punitive enough to deter the behavior. I propose that anyone in Congress found trading illicitly should pay five times the gain as a fine. My faith in the processes of the federal bureaucracy is failing. The fact that I have to write this is galling. I ask that we make the process of governing more transparent and above reproach. Stop this madness.