“Young investors have a new strategy,” National Public Radio’s Tim Mak reported on September 21:  “Watching financial disclosures of sitting members of Congress for stock tips.”

Under the Stock Act, members of Congress must disclose their own stock trades, and those of their spouses, within 45 days. One member of a TikTok investor community refers to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as the “queen of investing” due to lucrative trades made by her husband.

The obvious implication is that members of Congress often engage in “insider trading,” using information they receive pursuant to their duties, or information concerning the likely effects of upcoming legislation, to buy and sell (or have family members buy and sell) profitably and mostly with impunity (there’s an occasional ethics investigation, but seldom serious punitive action).

No wonder Congress is one of the wealthier groups in America. A majority of its members are millionaires, and their median net worth exceeds $1 million. And many of them seem to rack up a lot more wealth while actually serving in Congress (as opposed to before running for office) than the $174,000 base salary would account for.

There’s a way to fix that. Don’t hold your breath awaiting its adoption — the very members of Congress who benefit from insider trading would have to pass rules implementing it — but it’s still worth suggesting.

First, preemptively raise congressional pay: In addition to the base salary, generous allowances for dependent spouses and children (let’s say $50,000 per dependent). Not that $174,000 per year isn’t sufficient to support a family of four, but let’s head off any complaints about that.

Second, require members of Congress to put their FAMILY wealth into “blind trusts” so that they don’t know how the money is invested. Of course, congressional spouses aren’t automatically bound by congressional rules, but members could be given the option of convincing their spouses, or resigning, or being sanctioned by losing committee seats, being barred from leadership, or even being expelled.

Third, tax those blind trusts at a rate of 100% for all gains above and beyond the inflation rate. After all, the rich should pay “their fair share.”

Finally, forbid moonlighting. Congress is supposedly a full-time job. US Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) should have to choose between serving in Congress and knocking down  book advances larger than their salaries, as both did in 2020.

Would these measures eliminate corruption in Congress? Not even close. Among other tricks, they’d still be able to sell their influence in return for cushy think tank positions or “private sector” lobbying jobs once they leave office.

But it would be a start. The goal here is for no one to leave Congress wealthier than he or she entered it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“Debate on ‘no first use’ of nukes mushrooms in Washington,” Joe Gould reports at Defense News. “Five years after President Barack Obama turned back from declaring a ‘no first use’ as US policy for nuclear weapons,” Gould writes, “opponents say the Biden administration is considering it too, and warn that it risks alienating allies.”

Is it really a big deal for the US government to affirm that it will not use nuclear weapons first in any future conflict?

US Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) says it would signal prospective enemies  “that they can plan an attack and do whatever they want to and not worry.”

That argument might pass the smell test if anyone believed a word the US government said for public consumption, but the Washington foreign policy establishment enjoys no such credibility. The US does what it wants, when it wants, past commitments be damned, and no foreign power’s diplomats or generals (allied or hostile) are naive enough to expect otherwise.

A “no first use” proclamation, whether passed by Congress or simply announced by a president, would be the equivalent of an abusive husband buying flowers for his wife.

The flowers don’t mean he’s not going to throw her down the stairs the next time he comes home drunk, just like he did the last time and the time before that. Nor is she likely to take them that way. They’re just a nice, pretty, empty gesture.

Of course, the US government isn’t an abusive husband. It’s the world’s most powerful organized crime syndicate, and its nuclear arsenal is a key element in enforcing its global protection racket.

Like all such rackets, this one starts with a pseudo-friendly “nice country ya got there … be a shame if anything happened to it.”

And as with all such rackets, the implication is that if the victim doesn’t fork over whatever’s demanded, he can expect to get pistol-whipped or perhaps thrown through a plate glass window for starters, and eventually have his establishment burned down if he doesn’t play ball.

The maintenance of a nuclear arsenal of any significant size — that is, larger than a handful of “deterrent” weapons — covers all those bases. A supposed “no first use” policy wouldn’t diminish the actual or perceived threat in any way. It would just be a nice, unconvincing gesture. No big deal either way, so why pretend it’s a matter of weighty policy debate?

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Over the last two years — since the New York Times introduced its 1619 Project  to “reframe the country’s history” around the consequences of slavery — something called “Critical Race Theory” has become the new football in the never-ending political struggle to control the content of K-12 education in America.

“Conservative” opponents of CRT claim that it’s bad history, that those behind it want to build a totalitarian, race-based America, and that it’s infiltrated virtually every educational institution (they support that last claim by putting the CRT label on anything and everything they dislike).

“Progressives” level similar accusations at state-level bills to ban CRT, as well as efforts like former President Donald Trump’s “1776 Commission,” which aimed to promote “patriotic education” (President Joe Biden dissolved the Commission).

What’s important here isn’t so much whether Critical Race Theory or “patriotic education” constitutes an historically accurate curriculum (I vote “neither”). This isn’t actually a struggle over the facts. It’s a struggle to determine who gets to indoctrinate America’s future voters in a particular political ideology.

It’s far from the first such struggle. We’ve been having these fights ever since “public” education became a thing in America, and over everything from sex education (whether to have it at all, and if so whether to acknowledge LGBTQ orientations and whether to discuss contraception or preach “abstinence only”) to evolution versus creationism. Those past fights, too, were far more about pushing partisan political propaganda than about the facts or, for that matter, what was best for the kids.

It’s actually a simple problem with a simple solution.

No, I’m not thinking of “school choice” proposals like taxpayer-financed “charter” schools or voucher/tax credit programs which distribute taxpayer money to supposedly “private” schools. Those proposals simply create new government schools and/or turn “private” INTO government schools with attached strings, as we’ve seen in higher education with the GI Bill, Pell Grants, and government-guaranteed student loans. As long as tax funding is involved, education will remain political.

If we want politics out of education, we have to separate school and state. Entirely. No government involvement whatsoever. Parents can homeschool their kids, or join with other parents to teach small groups, or hire private tutors, or pay tuition at private schools — without one thin dime of taxpayer aid or one crumb of government permission or bureaucratic control.

I said the solution is simple, and it is. “Simple” doesn’t mean the same thing as “easy,” or for that matter “equal” — yes, I’m aware that some parents have more money and/or time and/or teaching skill than others to invest in their kids’ education.

Quality education is certainly a desirable service, and one government schools continue to get worse and worse at providing. Universal access is a laudable goal, but only if it’s access to something worthwhile.

Getting politics out of education would go a long way toward solving quality problems as well, but there’s only one way to get politics out of education, and that’s to get government out of education.

The sooner the better.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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