Billy Long is Indeed Wrong, Contradicts House Ethics Rules

It was amazing, listening to Mr. Billy Long complain how successful he has been in business and now must throw it away if elected to Congress.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5586138
 ( fast forward to 1:16:30 )


Mike Moon starts to challenge him but doesn't take it far enough asking whether he has to give up his farm if elected, Long said 'yes' if he has 'fiduciary' responsibilities. The real answer is no. Mike Moon doesn't have to give up anything and neither does Billy Long have to give up ANY of his assets, if in the unlikely event he can pull this off. Billy Long must have the worst advisers on the planet. He has bemoaned in the past and did so again about having to surrender his lifelong business to serve as a U.S. Congressman if elected. I'm amazed that he has never been challenged on that issue with the exception of Mike Moons' minor questioning.

So here is the challenge::

Billy Long::
A.     Knows the truth and is hoping the voters of the 7th CD are ignorant enough not to question his position.
B.      Is lying and is trying to garner sympathy for the downtrodden Millionaire
C.      Is clueless as to the rules in the Ethics Manual ( Not going there today ), and the 'advisers' that he has been rumored to have retained are equally ignorant.

I choose the 3rd, because it fits his past statements of saying "I'm not the smartest guy in the room"


For those wanting to read, look here:
Page 256 (not the pdf page) of the 2008 House Ethics Manual

http://ethics.house.gov/Media/PDF/2008_House_Ethics_Manual.pdf

For those who don't want to read it, here are the cliff notes:

Basically, everything that is real property over the value of $1,000 bucks need to be disclosed, with a few exceptions i.e. your home that doesn't produce income. The reasons for the disclosure is to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest. i.e. owning a medical billing company and voting on a medicare bill that could impact your industry, or a car dealership and have the government bail out your manufacture. Now having friends that it could impact might not be a violation, but it sure looks fishy.

Putting everything in a qualified blind trust (as per the House Ethics Manual) alleviates the need to disclose because you can't control the trust, therefor, no potential conflict of interest.

The Long and Short of it, is simple:

Do your homework before coming to class or risk being embarrassed by your teacher