Joe Pitts: “When one is an executive of a large corporation, one has a job that carries tremendous responsibility. Ford Motors…”

“When one is an executive of a large corporation, one has a job that carries tremendous responsibility. Ford Motors, Chevron, Texaco, and IBM have more employees than many countries have citizens. Wal-Mart, EXXON, and General Motors have annual budgets larger than the gross domestic products of many nations. When the executives of Enron, which was America's fifth largest company, cooked the books, the victims of their crime are not just a few people from Houston. Americans everywhere suffer, some severely. When the executives of WorldCom, which was America's 42nd largest employer, used tricky accounting to fool investors, everybody suffers, too. When a mugger in a back alley sticks us up at gunpoint and takes our wallets, that is bad. But is it not worse when a man in a thousand dollar suit steals millions of dollars from people who are counting on his honesty to help them keep their jobs or to retire? Yesterday, the House voted for a new law to severely punish corporate crooks for their crimes. We should conference with the other body immediately so we can send a bill to the President as soon as possible.”