Pete Domenici: “I rise first in support of our free market economy. The revelations over the last few months of corporate officials…”

“I rise first in support of our free market economy. The revelations over the last few months of corporate officials having betrayed the trust of their employees and their investors is simply unacceptable. These corporate officials must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and if additional penalties are required, then we should enact them. But let us not forget, that despite these terrible, unconscionable acts perpetrated by some CEOs on their workers and investors, the principles of our free market economy remain the envy of the world. These principles have allowed our economy to be the most productive, most innovative, most creative system, that has created income and employment only dreamed of in other parts of the world. One of these principles is property rights. But it seems that some corporate managers have forgotten that the companies they run are not their personal property to operate however they see fit or for their own benefit. The exuberance of the 1990s that Chairman Greenspan warned us about and the extraordinary income and wealth generated during that period, allowed for unethical persons in our business sector to exploit this time of growth for their own selfish purposes and to bend the rules for their own benefit. So as we pursue new rules to punish those who have betrayed a trust-- and we must--let us not allow the pendulum to swing so far that it jeopardizes the innovation and vitality of our economic system for the future.”