[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12412]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, a crook is a crook whether he is dealing 
drugs in an alleyway or cooking the books to cheat employees and 
shareholders. If someone commits a crime, they should do the time, and 
I am glad to say we have a President who understands this. Yesterday, 
President Bush went right to Wall Street to tell corporate America to 
clean up its act, and I believe they will.
  We should all be clear about one thing, the vast majority of 
America's corporations are run by honest and trustworthy people. For 
every Enron and WorldCom, there are thousands of companies who have 
done nothing wrong at all, but when it comes to corporate executives 
who are willing to cheat their own employees out of their retirements 
just to add a couple of dollars to their stock prices, in those cases, 
we should have zero tolerance.

                              {time}  1015

  Somehow, during the 1990s, some executives decided it was okay to 
cook the books a little. Well, it is not okay to cook the books, and 
America's executives need to know if they do cook the books this 
government is going to come down on them hard.
  I applaud the President for his leadership.

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