President Joe Biden lent his voice Tuesday to growing bipartisan calls on the Hill to end stock trading by members of Congress.
“I don’t know how you can look your constituents in the eye and know that because of the work they’ve given you, they’ve given you an inside track to making more money,” Biden said in an interview with the left-leaning nonprofit. , A More Perfect Union. “I think we should change the law.”
“No one in Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while in Congress,” said Faiz Shakir, a political adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
President Joe Biden speaks during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Dec. 16, 2024.
Rod Lamkey/AP
In July, a bipartisan group of senators — Democrats Jon Ossoff, Gary Peters and Jeff Merkle, along with Republican Josh Hawley — introduced it. legislation which would prohibit members of Congress from buying and selling individual stocks. This legislation will also apply to the spouses and dependents of Senators. Similar bills have also been presented in the Chamber.
During his presidency, Biden refused to talk about members of Congress owning stocks, which was especially controversial because lawmakers were making money from the pandemic.
During the interview, Biden went after corporate greed.
President Joe Biden speaks at the Department of Labor in Washington on December 16, 2024.
Ben Curtis/AP
He discussed the decline of products being made in the US, saying that corporations have sought cheap labor outside the country.
“Corporate America got greedy and what they decided to do is find the cheapest labor in the world,” Biden said. “They would ship the product to that state, that place, that nation and import the product back.”
Biden also talked about the economy, reflecting on why people think they are feeling this way, even though macroeconomic factors show an improvement, a key factor in the Democrats’ loss of the 2024 election.
“It’s just starting to sink in,” Biden said of his decades-long policy plans to invest in technology and infrastructure. “I think it’s hard to tell someone about the hundreds of thousands of jobs we’ve created with CHIPS and the Science Act when they haven’t seen it yet.”
He also acknowledged that prices are still higher than before the pandemic, including basic goods like milk and eggs, which he said are “just starting to change.”
“So there is reason for frustration, but a huge change has been made,” he said.
President Joe Biden speaks at the Department of Labor on December 16, 2024 in Washington
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Biden also admitted that it is more difficult to get ahead in America than before.
The Biden administration has approved more than $175 billion in debt relief for more than 4.8 million Americans, especially those who have been paying for decades, who are enrolled in a public service loan program and who were defrauded by their colleges.
