Congressional approval in the U.S. is at embarrassingly low levels. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found Americans’ approval of Congress in the single digits. And a story that aired on “60 Minutes” last weekend is not likely to improve Congress’s standing with the public. Insider trading is a crime in the U.S., but the laws that apply to most Americans do not apply to their lawmakers. According to the report, powerful members of Congress and their staffs have used their knowledge of privileged information to make vast sums of money in the stock market. Public outrage over the story may be enough to get a long-ignored bill in the House that would ban lawmakers from insider trading passed. Republican Senator Scott Brown, who is up for reelection in 2012, is introducing a bill in the Senate to stop the practice. And a group of Democrats in the Senate say they will be proposing their own version next week.
Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich and Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times, discuss the practice of insider trading in Congress, and examine whether the bill is likely to pass.