It has been quite a week in our nation’s capitol
as my House colleagues and I took up a
number of important debates. We addressed the issues of
trading with Vietnam and Cuba,
granting our military added funds needed to fight the war on
terrorism, establishing a new
federal department to protect our homeland from the threats of
terror, and expelling a
fellow member of Congress.
But the issue that I feel bears the greatest importance right
now was the timely response
to the corporate scandals that have shaken our nation’s economy.
On Thursday, we came together in a bipartisan fashion to find
a common sense way to
hold greedy executives accountable for their actions. The
Corporate Accountability Act
creates tougher penalties for corporate and accounting fraud
while strengthening laws to
protect investors, employees, and those with retirement accounts.
It creates strong
accounting oversight and auditor independence through the establishment
of a public
auditing regulatory board. Under the bill, executives will
be held accountable for honest
bookkeeping, and will be subject to new corporate responsibility
standards.
I feel confident that this legislation will be the catalyst that
restores the confidence of
hard-working families in our economy, that will punish those
who have done wrong, and
most importantly, that will make greedy corporate climbers think
twice before messing with
other people’s money. |
