Robert Berry: “the gentleman from Maine is absolutely right. It is a national scandal. A few months ago, we had these corporate…”

“the gentleman from Maine is absolutely right. It is a national scandal. A few months ago, we had these corporate scandals. We were having, it seemed like, one or two a week. We had corporations that had been caught not telling the truth. Apparently we had corporations that had some executives that might have even taken money that did not belong to them. We found out all of a sudden that these companies did not have the assets they said they had. They were not worth what they said they were worth. They could not do what they said they could do. We just rushed to the floor of this House, we could not get here quick enough, and passed a law that said we are going to punish them some more. And we should have. They deserve to be punished. Every day now you pick up the paper and you see another corporate executive is being charged by the Department of Justice for breaking the law and they are making him a criminal. If they broke the law, they deserve to be treated as criminals, and they deserve whatever comes to them. That is for the law to decide. But for the prescription drug manufacturers in this country and those that sell their products in this country to continue to rob and cheat the senior citizens of this country should be against the law. It should not be allowed. It is just as wrong as those corporate executives that betrayed their stockholders and betrayed their employees and betrayed people that invested in their companies.”