Throw us a bone, Congress, and lay off the stock trough

This isn’t shaping up to be a great year for Congress — specifically, the House of Representatives, and, still more specifically, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). After the calamitously bruising battle to send more magic fedbux off to support wars deemed in America’s interest, which saw the speaker side with Democrats over outraged members of his own party, the nation’s legislature plumbed new depths of dissatisfaction among millions of Americans.

For many voting citizens, the outrage turned on the quaint idea that our tax dollars are being allocated for purposes the people reject. The good news is your tax dollars are safe from that treatment. The bad news? That’s because our government is now based on slamming the “0” button on the national computer to add ever more zeroes to the end of the total federal budget.

The more you know, the more you “earn” — light work under our legal system, where it’s extremely difficult to prove insider trading allegations.

The ship of fiscal responsibility sailed a long time ago — it’s time to wake up to the fact that the feds simply create “dollars” out of thin air and “spend” them however they want. Your tax dollars are largely a fiction for budgetary purposes, even though their disappearance from your pocket couldn’t be more real.

But though the swamp treats taxes like beatings meant to continue until morale improves, it’s really the spending that has Americans with torch and pitchfork in hand.

Everyone knows taxes are a fact of life — unless you’re poor enough to be excused or rich enough to excuse yourself. What really has Middle America mad is the increasingly flagrant way that the nation’s power elite hoovers up real money for itself by making the printer go brrrr on multibillion-dollar expenditures just because they say so.

The feedback loop works like this. Elected officials have already delegated away most of their governing authority to the swarm of bureaucratic agencies basketed under the executive branch, leaving Congress critters free to focus on their one true love — deciding how the infinite supply of invented value is given away. By showering this manna from a place somewhat south of heaven on favored corporations and cronies from K Street to Kyiv, members gain beaucoup bennies of their own.

Not only do they gain in power and prestige, quickly cementing their ability to return to the trough — I mean, public office — again and again. They also gain the exit options they’ll eventually cash in on when their ability to luxuriate out of office exceeds their ability to do so within.

But wait, there’s more. By pouring patronage on the places where they know the unelected bureaucrats will concentrate their corruption, they ensure that business opportunities ordinary Americans can’t access will bloom forth on a predictable, virtually foolproof schedule.

And what that means is members of Congress can — wait for it — cash in on those opportunities, rigging up a system of rotating windfalls that keep the circular gravy train in perpetual motion.

Examples? They’re plenty. They’re at the heart of the suspicious activity I went to Washington with Blaze Originals to put under an investigative blacklight. The resulting documentary, “Bought and Paid For: How Politicians Get Filthy Rich,” gives you an eyeful of scandal: officials cashing in on insider information it’s actually not quite illegal to leverage for personal gain.

Most who take advantage suffer, at worst, slaps on the wrist, even for the most egregious transactions — like placing big stock bets on defense contractors on the eve of the war in Ukraine or pushing the bounds of the rules while sitting on the ethics committee.

The more you know, the more you “earn” — light work under our legal system, where it’s extremely difficult to prove insider trading allegations. (That wasn’t Nancy Pelosi adding to her millions by going all in on Nvidia stock right before it popped. That was her husband, a canny and avid trader!)

Blaze Originals reached out to just about every member of Congress plausibly involved or interested in these goings-on — and, like Pelosi herself, just about every member stonewalled. But don’t worry. “Bought and Paid For” is full of big surprises, choice interviews, and inside info of our own.

It’s no substitute for legislation, but it is a spur. Amid the House’s richly earned shame spiral, an extra dose of opprobrium might be just what the doctor ordered. The very, very least members could do to begin to atone for their profligate ways is to turn off the money tap, starting with themselves. There’s even legislation to help do just that ready for a vote in the House and the Senate.

And with November looming, today’s super-traders would be well advised to apply their outsized talents for self-dealing to their political futures. Unlike their counterparts in the administrative bureaucracy, we can actually throw them out of a job. Cool it with the unseemly cash-grab, and maybe next term the better angels of their nature will get the upper hand.

Or else!