Political Quotes

“Mr. President, before the Senator from Oklahoma offers his amendment--and I will not take a great deal of time in my comments--I want to respond to some questions that many of our colleagues have raised about the reporting requirements in this bill. One of my colleagues, for example, has asked if a change in a Member's or staff's allocation in the Thrift Savings Program would be required to be reported under this bill. It would not. It is not required to be reported under the annual financial disclosure and it is not required under this bill. A second of our colleagues has brought up a question of how would mutual funds be treated. Again, I would say that the treatment is not changed by this bill, other than the time period. Under this bill, as under the annual financial disclosure forms, qualified investment funds--those are the widely available mutual funds that are exempt from trades being disclosed--would be exempt under this bill as well. As with our annual financial disclosures, you still list the fund and the amount of assets in categories for those funds, but you indicate that they are a qualified exempt fund and there is no requirement for trying to figure out what the trades are within that fund. I mention these two examples because I fear there is some misinformation about the bill that is circulating. There is a legitimate dispute over whether 30 days is too short a time, whether the 90-day period in the original bill is better, which is my own preference.…”