[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12240-12241]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   PRESIDENT SOUNDS CLARION, MORAL CALL FOR CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY

  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, President Calvin Coolidge said the business 
of America is business. But Coolidge was a moralist, and he meant not 
that America is dependent on the almighty dollar but that the business 
of America is dependent on the integrity and the character of the 
people who lead our enterprise.
  Today, our President sounded a clarion, moral call for corporate 
responsibility. Corporate and accounting malfeasance at companies like 
Enron, WorldCom, Merck, and Arthur Andersen all argue that this need 
for reform is urgent. As the President said, business leaders who 
defraud shareholders should go to jail. As the President said, business 
leaders must accept personal responsibility for financial statements 
and be barred from serving on corporate boards when they, even 
unintentionally, fail in that regard.
  Mr. Speaker, the reality is, the 1990s was not a decade where people 
in power were held accountable for their self-serving decisions. Let us 
follow President George W. Bush's clarion call and make this decade a 
time again when we recognize in the law and in reform and in regulation 
that righteousness exalts a nation.

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