I tuned in last night to see Eric Cantor on 60 Minutes. When I saw the segment had been pulled, I went to the CBS website and found Leslie Stahl interviewing Cantor about how he supported and would “expand” the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act.) This act would prohibit members of Congress and their aides from profiting from inside information that would land you and me in prison.
Cantor plans to revive STOCK Act in 2012.
"We wanna make sure that the public understands we abhor that kind of conduct," Cantor told Stahl. "We're gonna build on the STOCK Act and bring forward a measure that actually deals with all of it so we can take care of any suggestion that a member of Congress somehow uses his or her official position to affect their own personal enrichment."
That means expanding the bill so that it bars more than just stock transactions, he said.
"I think that you can look at examples across the country, of any various levels of government, where unfortunately there are some bad actors, and they've engaged in taking and seizing upon information they have -- and acting on it," he said. "And that means whether they're buying stock or whether they are buying land, allegedly, on inside information that they feel they can profit from that [when] no one else can."
Of course, he should know.
Eric Cantor’s glaring conflict of interest
He's the GOP's chief debt ceiling negotiator. He's also invested in a fund that will skyrocket if there's a default.
How hypocritical to claim he wants to expand on the STOCK Act when he prevented the law from being voted on just a week ago (for the fourth time!) after the law languished in the House for six years. That’s only about half of the time Cantor has been in Congress, so, perhaps, in his world, this is moving fast.
Cantor’s behavior before the Stahl interview surprised Congresswoman Louise Slaughter from New York, an original sponsor, in the wake of the earlier 60 Minutes segment about members of Congress enriching themselves from insider trading. Especially after the Great Recession, from which Cantor, many colleagues, and his Wall Street campaign contributors became wealthier while the rest of the country suffered.
Eric Cantor's net worth from his financial disclosure forms:
2010 : From $2,893,110 to $8,048,999
2009 : From $2,175,157 to $7,533,999
2008 : From $1,853,155 to $6,707,999
(Source Open Secrets)
His behavior in quashing the law is further surprising now that it's co-sponsored by 237 representatives, a clear majority of the House of Representatives. Maybe now that 48% of the country has slipped into poverty according to a recent report, Cantor has become reborn as a reformer…or maybe not.
Cantor told Stahl that he planned to have a more comprehensive Act passed within a couple of months. I doubt that he offered any information that would provide answers to questions about his own financial conflict of interest during the debt ceiling debate from which he disengaged in a temper tantrum. Earlier this year, when asked if he would profit if the debt ceiling talks failed, his spokesperson simply responded that Cantor didn’t keep up with all of his investments.
Only the most practiced hypocrite could avoid commenting on his own conflict while claiming to want to ban the corruption and “illegal activity” of others, and only a professional politician trying to cover his tracks would kill a law that he claims he wants to strengthen. In Cantor’s world, only a polished pot can call a kettle black.
And given how Cantor behaved during the Debt Ceiling negotiations, I can't help but wonder what kind of stock deal Cantor is working on while he stalls passing the STOCK Act.