President Bush and his supporters have stressed two key concepts since at least the beginning of his re-election campaign: a return to traditional family values and the development of an ownership society. In two recent articles in today’s New York Times alone, though, we see that these policies are more “do what I say, not what I do” when applied to the people who supply Republican electoral efforts with cash and other useful resources. One wonders how these individuals resolve such conflicts privately, especially those espousing religion-based personal moralities.
In Sorry, I’m Keeping the Bonus Anyway, reporter Jonathan Glater demonstrates that many American corporate executives would rather keep their piles of money rather than their integrity by keeping bonuses paid to them for financial performance results later proved wrong. In the editorial Mr. Bush’s Stealthy Tax Increase the lopsided impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax explicitly undermines Bush Administration claims that its policies further the ability of middle class families to secure their financial futures.
The Glater article begins by stating that over 400 corporations restated previous year earnings in 2004 alone yet the reporter can only find one situation, at Nortel Networks, where executives returned performance bonus compensation; then again, Nortel is a Canadian company (though subject to American financial laws). Mainly, it seems, corporate directors shy away from pursuing this issue for fear of further sullying the company’s reputation as well as the cost and length of litigation. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the primary regulator, is so swamped by the workload of investigating the malfeasance of recent years that it cannot reach this far down the priority queue.
So my question to corporate executives, paid dozens or hundreds times the earnings of the mass of people working at the base of their corporate pyramids–and to officials in government agencies and departments that oversee them as well–is where are your values? Specifically, where is your integrity and willingness to live by the code which you publicly claim to support?
Laws, regulations and employment contracts aside, to fallen executives: Humbly accept your shortcomings and supply us instead with examples of the leadership and honor claimed while working up to your exalted (albeit, generally former) positions rather than hiding in silence behind lawyers who take advantage of boards of directors unwilling to face their own responsibilities. Don’t wait for lawsuits and SEC investigations to disgorge the ultimately unearned monies paid in good faith, just go into the den and get out your checkbook.
The Times’ editorial lays out some simple facts: tens of millions of American families, particularly those earning between $75,000 and $150,000 annually, will lose any benefits from the first term tax cuts as the AMT, not indexed for inflation, chews away deductions for state income and property taxes over the next decade. Meanwhile, the richest Americans will avoid most of the AMT impact because the tax rate on capital gains doesn’t come into play.
To President Bush and the members of his Administration: Speak honestly and consistently while spending the political capital you claimed to have won in the November elections. Don’t travel around the country generating support for Social Security reform on the one hand while quietly implementing tax changes on the other that are more likely than not to wipe out any potential gains from such reform. Show confidence in your proposals by meeting opponents in public and answering their criticism directly and comprehensively.
BillSaysThis 