There is a crisis of confidence in this country.  It is evident by the daily roller coaster rides on the stock market.  It can be seen in the faces of investors who have seen their retirement and college funds wiped out.  We see in the eyes of the Bush Administration, who look like deer stuck in headlights when confronted by questions about restoring corporate accountability. 

            Unfortunately, the President’s strategy seems to be constantly reassuring the public that the economy is still strong.  He and his administration repeat this mantra whenever queried on the growing crisis in confidence, and they have done little to stabilize the public’s mounting distrust of corporate America.  

It is clear this Administration, which is filled with former corporate executives, is dead set on continuing business as usual. The President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security is currently developing a privatization plan that would invest citizens’ social security contributions in the stock market. 

            A report released on July 23^rd by the non-partisan Center for Economic and Policy Research analyzed the devastating results of what could have occurred had the retirement system been privatized four years ago as my Republican friends tried to do.  The study found that if 2% of Social Security funds had been invested in the stock market, retirees would have lost more than $31 billion.  If 5% had been privatized, retirees would have lost more than $78 billion. 

           After President Bush made his weak proposals at his Wall Street speech to restore corporate accountability, the stock market reacted with seven straight days of decline for the first time in 18 years.  There is no leadership on this issue coming from the top. 

           After the Enron disclosure, Congressional Democrats began working immediately to prevent the corporate scandals from mushrooming.  We did so without any cooperation of Congressional Republicans and the White House.  They seemed hell bent on maintaining the status quo.  They were inclined to pretend that WorldCom, Tyco, Xerox, Halliburton, AOL, and Global Crossing did not exist. 

Republican Senator Phil Gramm held up Senate consideration of a sweeping corporate accountability bill authored by Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) at the behest of the accounting industry for more than a month.  When the mounting scandals started to esculate the Republicans couldn’t scramble fast enough to pass the Sarbanes legislation by a unanimous vote. 

           This bill would create an independent board with authority to oversee and provide enforcement of laws governing the accounting industry.  Accounting firms would be prohibited from providing consulting services to companies they audit.    It would empower federal prosecutors with new tools to investigate and punish corporate criminals.  And corporate executives would have to certify their financial statements. 

This bill is a key component to restoring public faith and confidence in the market and corporate America.  The Senate gave it unanimous support, and the Republican House Leadership responded by calling for a cooling off period to give lobbyists and the accounting industry more time to work on eviscerating the bill.  They finally gave up just one day before Congress’ summer recess and passed basically the Democrat’s Bill. 

November 8^th will mark the one-year anniversary of Enron’s revised financial disclosure that set off the company’s catastrophic collapse.  It comes three days after this year’s Election Day.  I would hope the Administration and my colleagues would show some leadership on this issue by that date.  If not, the outraged public should hold them accountable at the ballot box.

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