Just in time for our discussion of committee assignments comes this Washington Post story on Ron Paul.
As we saw in class, he a member of the House Financial Services subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology. He uses this post to advocate for a return to the gold standard, but he also invests heavily in companies that mine for gold. He doesn't consider this a conflict of interest, but the articles author isn't quite sure. What's more, nothing he is doing is unethical under Congressional guidelines, though it is illegal for executive officials and others.
Though Paul is the subject of the piece, he is far from the only member of Congress in a position to pass laws that benefit their investments:
In both houses of Congress, a host of other committee chairmen and ranking members have reported that they have millions invested in business sectors that their panels oversee, according to a Post analysis of financial disclosure records through 2008, committee assignments and lawmaker investments by industry.
The disclosure reports covering 2009 will be made public in the coming days. But because lawmakers still use a pen-and-paper method of reporting, it will be months before the information is entered into a database by the Center for Responsive Politics and then made available for analysis by The Post.
For more information about Dr. Paul's gold standard positions:
- What was the gold standard?
- Gold standard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Monetary policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- FRB: Monetary Policy
