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President Bush’s recent visit to Wall Street to announce that he is morally opposed to the corporate shenanigans that have resulted in billions of dollars in losses to investors reminded me of the very popular Wendy’s advertisements of the 1980s that extolled – “Where’s the beef?” Everybody in the country is morally outraged by the unethical and criminal behavior of CEOs with multi-million dollar salaries getting even richer while their employees are losing their jobs, their life savings and the pension benefits to which they are morally and legally entitled. And they want to know where to go to get justice.
At his Wall Street speech, President Bush had the opportunity to ease investors’ fears and give some solace to the country. Instead he offered a spongy, doughy mix of platitudes and empty promises to hold CEOs accountable. The victims and the public are asking, where is the beef?
Recent corporate scandals - among them Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Rite-Aid, Xerox, with more soon to come – are part of a bigger problem. People in high places and powerful positions are acting irresponsibly, in ways that hurt investors, destabilize the markets, terminate employees, and jeopardize their pensions and retirement systems. All with little accountability and accepting no responsibility.
Instead, their elected friends in Washington and other high places are coddling these corporate marauders. Earlier in this Congress Republicans rammed through a 15-year retroactive tax cut that gave $1 billion to the biggest corporations, including $254 million to Enron. They voted to expand the ability of companies to create big financial packages for high executives. And they have freed corporate polluters from their responsibility to pay for toxic clean up.
In his Wall Street speech the President would have done himself and the nation proud if he had announced bi-partisan support for the legislation authored by Senator Paul Sarbanes, a Democrat from Maryland. That legislation would insure corporate accountability by requiring honest accounting, independent investment advice, sensible regulation, and criminal penalties for those guilty of corporate wrongdoing.
But our Chief Executive, who was once a corporate CEO himself, seems loathed to strike at the very heart of the sweet deals that made both him and his former running mate and now our Vice President, Dick Cheney, wealthy men. There was no mention in his speech about whistleblower protection for employees of corporations if they report the wrongdoing they experience. He made no mention of breaking up the coziness between corporations and accounting firms. He made no mention of off- shore tax havens many of these corporations use while extolling consumers to buy American. And he did not mention anything about the pay packages with stock options that give executives incentives to rip off the companies they are supposed to be running to the benefit of stockholders.
We are now seeing the effect of those type deals and, even with all these revelations, this administration seems reluctant to take any real action to curb unethical and criminal behavior in the boardrooms of our most powerful corporations. Citizens expect elected officials to work for the whole country, not just the powerful and privileged few. Some of my colleagues and I are fighting to ensure that ordinary citizens who work hard and play by the rules have the opportunity to achieve financial success and economic stability. It is time to change the message coming out of Washington and put priorities such as education, the environment, Social Security, and prescription drugs ahead of corporate giveaways. The American people deserve their share of the beef, rather than getting stuck with an over-inflated bun.
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U.S. Congressman 
