October 1999 | Hightower Lowdown
Clinton Backs Corporate Accountability
by Jim Hightower
Let’s hear it for the Clinton Administration!
I don’t get many chances to praise this bunch, since they’ve wasted their tenure working for the Wall Street elites and against the workaday folks of America — but lo and behold, they’re actually taking a stand that could do something about the corporate abuse of workers, our environment, consumers, and anyone else who gets in the way of corporate greed.
The Clintonites are proposing what columnists Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman call "A Law & Order Regulation for Corporations." Actually, the regulation has long been on the books, but it’s been routinely ignored. This regulation says that any corporation contracting with a federal procurement office must have a "satisfactory record of integrity and business ethics."
It’s not widely publicized, but huge corporations keep routinely violating our nation’s laws — including killing workers, defrauding consumers, recklessly polluting our air and water, and otherwise committing crimes that would put you and me in jail, even put us on death row. Yet, corporations have been allowed to walk, simply paying a meaningless fine. They even get rewarded by getting billions-of-dollars worth of government contracts.
So, the Clinton proposal is to "clarify" that integrity-and-ethics regulation by saying that chronic corporate violators of our laws cannot get government contracts. Now this would be a real deterrent to corporate crime — if the recidivist reprobates of the business world could not get any of the $200 billion a year the feds spend on contracts, not only might they shape up, but the thousands of honest businesses in our country would get the advantage they deserve.
The regulation is far from a done deal since the corporate criminals, supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are raising hell about it — and the Clinton bunch is notorious for caving in to corporate pressure. But at least they’ve put the issue on the table. Good for them!
Jim Hightower is a columnist and author. To subscribe to The Hightower Lowdown, send $15, and your name, and address to: Lowdown, P.O. Box 20596, New York, NY 10011. Visit his web site for more info.
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