Nothing is Beneath the Chamber of Commerce

The Washington Post's Steve Pearlstein has a column today showing how, even in the wake of the Enron/Worldcom scandals, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce "is still waging a rear-guard action against government regulators determined not to let it happen again."

Apparently, "chamber officials huddled yesterday to plan their assault on regulations requiring companies to implement and test" new auditing rules. But as Pearstein notes, their rationale is "based largely on the kind of anecdotal evidence picked up in country-club locker rooms" as they claim "the regulations have wasted corporate time and cash flow, discouraged risk taking, triggered mass resignations of corporate directors and dissuaded untold numbers of companies from going public."

It's really sad when a trade association like the Chamber of Commerce becomes so greedy for short-term profits, they can no longer see the long-term benefits of strong regulations that protect the marketplace. The fact is, without these regulations (and more like them), America would be hit with more scandals, hurting every business in the economy. As New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has said,
regulation and prosecuting corporate crime "is an essential part of maintaining the integrity of the market" - and thus one of the key ways to keep capitalism working.