Inside the machine
The Wall Street Journal looked at outside income earned by a number of Congressional staffers. The problem is obvious: money is influence.
An excerpt:
"When Katheryn Rosen was working as a senior aide to Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), she received income relating to her previous employment at New York banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Shortly after starting on Capitol Hill in July 2009, she collected about $500,000 in deferred compensation that she was not eligible to receive until a year after she left the company. Many companies offer deferred-compensation plans so employees can supplement their retirement benefits by deferring a portion of their current earnings, although they don't have to wait until retirement to access the money. When she left her job at J.P. Morgan a year before starting on Capitol Hill, the bank accelerated the deferred-compensation payments.
An excerpt:
"When Katheryn Rosen was working as a senior aide to Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), she received income relating to her previous employment at New York banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Shortly after starting on Capitol Hill in July 2009, she collected about $500,000 in deferred compensation that she was not eligible to receive until a year after she left the company. Many companies offer deferred-compensation plans so employees can supplement their retirement benefits by deferring a portion of their current earnings, although they don't have to wait until retirement to access the money. When she left her job at J.P. Morgan a year before starting on Capitol Hill, the bank accelerated the deferred-compensation payments.
That fall, the House Financial Services Committee, then headed by Mr. Frank, began debate on the legislation he co-authored to tighten regulations on financial-services firms. On Sept. 29 and Oct. 8, Ms. Rosen cashed in about $300,000 in J.P. Morgan stock grants that she wasn't allowed to sell until they vested around that time.
Congress eventually passed a sweeping overhaul of financial rules, although big banks won some victories that allowed them to keep their basic business structures intact. There is no evidence that Ms. Rosen did anything to help J.P. Morgan."
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