David Boren: “I rise in support of the amendment of the Senator from Michigan. First of all, I commend him for the leadership he has…”

“I rise in support of the amendment of the Senator from Michigan. First of all, I commend him for the leadership he has shown on the issue of executive compensation year after year after year. He has made sure that those stockholders who own the companies know exactly the compensation that is being paid to those that are operating those companies. After all, these companies belong to the shareholders, and they should have that information in a clear form and in a form that is understandable to them. In some cases in the past, the levels of compensation to some CEO's in this country have been far out of line with the ratios of compensation, compared to the compensation of employees in other countries. That has a potential impact on the productivity and performance of American companies. But executive compensation is not the issue here. The issue is whether or not we shall have an independent decisionmaking process by FASB or not. That is the issue. Should Congress begin now by applying pressure through a sense-of-the-Congress resolution on FASB while it is undertaking an independent decisionmaking process? I think it is very important that we have an independent process. Both the past Chair of the SEC, Richard Breeden, and the current Chair, Arthur Levitt, strongly state that they support an independent FASB.”