Martin Hoke: “I agree there is a lot of fog and panic, and we need to bring some common sense to this debate. It does strike me as…”

“I agree there is a lot of fog and panic, and we need to bring some common sense to this debate. It does strike me as being a little bit disingenuous that we are arguing over a $10.95 meal, when in fact the average Member of Congress takes $250,000 every election cycle in PAC money. What is the difference when there is special interest money funding congressional campaigns year after year after year to the tune of right now an average of $250,000, that we are speaking about this as a different way to purchase influence or access. In any event, let me tell you how we dealt with this in my own company, because I built a company from nothing, and we were in the retail business of selling car phones. Naturally we had a lot of suppliers. We wanted to guard against the possibility that some employee might be overpaying for something because of influence purchased as the result of gifts or entertainment. What we did was we went to a zero tolerance type of approach, where we said you may not accept any gifts, any meals, any entertainment, any golf, whatsoever. We just cut it off completely. I frankly think that is what we ought to do.”