Did you know members of Congress have a lower average stock-trading return than the general public? They actually underperform the market. If that were true, banning them would be solving a problem that doesn't exist. The real issue is insider trading, which is already illegal and prosecutable. A blanket ban treats every official like a crook and strips away their right to invest their own salary. We don't ban nurses from owning hospital stocks just because they might hear gossip. Enforce the laws we have instead of punishing everyone for a crime most never commit.

If that were true, we'd have to ban officials from owning mutual funds, real estate, and even 401(k)s—because all of those can be influenced by policy. Do you see how silly that gets? The actual problem isn't stocks, it's secret information, and that's already illegal. We don't need a blanket ban, we need to enforce insider trading laws. You haven't actually made a case for why officials are uniquely corruptible. Most of them underperform the market, remember. So let's not punish everyone for a problem we can't even prove exists.

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