[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 94 (Friday, July 12, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1249]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  SEC CHAIRMAN PITT SHOULD NOT RESIGN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. DAVID L. HOBSON

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 12, 2002

  Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to the 
recent calls by some of our colleagues for Securities and Exchange 
Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt to resign in the wake of the public 
disclosure of inaccurate corporate accounting measures and other 
problems on Wall Street.
  Mr. Pitt should resign, they say, because in his term of office he 
has done nothing to crack down on corporate abuse of the law and 
because he is too ``cozy with the business community'' These calls for 
Mr. Pitt's resignation are the epitome of hypocrisy. These schemes were 
hatched in the mid to late 1990s and the Bush administration inherited 
our current situation. Where was the SEC then? And why haven't these 
individuals who have been recently critical of the SEC only spoken up 
in the last week if they believed no one was ``minding the store?''
  The President correctly said recently that some corporate executives 
lack an ``ethical compass.'' But the current cycle of freewheeling 
financial dealings did not begin with the Bush Administration but 
during the heady, consequence-free years of the Clinton Administration. 
The calls for Mr. Pitt to step down are political posturing of the 
worst kind. President Bush said he believes that Mr. Pitt should get a 
chance to do the job for which the Senate confirmed him.
  The President has decided to give Mr. Pitt that chance, and so should 
my colleagues in Congress.

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