Posted on 07/20/2007 8:06:04 AM PDT by BGHater
Audit Trail recently sat down with 2008 Presidential Candidate Ron Paul, R-TX, to get his views on Sarbanes-Oxley 5 Years Later, as one of only three members of congress at the time to vote against the bill.
Audit Trail: It has been five years since the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley. Has your initial position on the legislation changed, or do you still believe it was an overreaction to a real problem?
Ron Paul: The damage inflicted on American businesses and capitol markets by Sarbanes-Oxley has strengthened my conviction that this legislation should be repealed. In 2000, nine of every ten dollars raised by foreign companies were raised in the United States. In 2005, nine of the ten largest offerings were not registered in the United States, and, of the largest twenty-five global offerings, only one took place in the US. The number of public companies going private increased from 143 in 2001 to 245 in 2004. Sarbanes-Oxley is a, if not the, major reason companies are fleeing America’s capital markets. Furthermore, according to some estimates, Sarbanes-Oxley has cost the very investors the law claims to protect at least $1.4 trillion. How could anyone regret voting against such a harmful bill?
AT: What has been most surprising to you as you look at what has happened since Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted?
RP: The solid consensus that today exists among Representatives of both parties and the regulatory bodies charged with enforcing Sarbanes-Oxley is that this legislation, which Congress overwhelmingly passed and the administration heralded as a great achievement, was poorly drafted and that small businesses need relief from the unintended consequences of the law.
AT: Do you think the recent changes that the SEC and PCAOB have made with respect to SOX 404 will be successful in easing the burden of compliance? Do they go far enough?
RP: No, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new regulations implementing Section 404 do not go nearly far enough in lifting the unjustified burdens Sarbanes-Oxley imposed on America’s economy.
Sarbanes-Oxley expert John Berlau, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said of the new rule that “Simply proclaiming that audits should be ‘risk-based’ won’t make them so, as long as the other mandates of this auditing standard remain in place. Auditors and companies will still face potential liability for not looking at every last process that could be deemed an ‘internal control,’ even if it has little relevance for shareholders. And the big accounting firms will also still have the big incentive to find every last ‘internal control’ they can audit and bill for.”
Of course, the regulators can only go so far in relieving the burden of Sarbanes-Oxley; it is up to Congress to correct the mistake it made when it rushed this unconstitutional, anti-prosperity, and anti-liberty bill into law.
AT: Is Sarbanes-Oxley still top of mind for you? Do you follow developments closely?
RP: Reform, or even repeal, of Sarbanes-Oxley remains one of my top priorities. As a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, I intend to continue to be an active participant in the debate over Sarbanes-Oxley and similar legislation.
I could go and explain that we have a global economy built largely on the capitalist ideals and free enterprise system that the US was built on. I could tell you that in this day and age there are not enough of us in this country to sustain our economy if we were to cut ourselves off and our success in trade is only being impeded by our crazy labor laws and the insane salaries that have evolved due to unions. I could also explain that protecting our allies also protects our customers as well as those who bring us goods and services, that since we won’t develop our resources here by protecting our foreign supplies of oil and other materials we prevent our economy from grinding to a halt, however in this case it would be a waste of time...
So we pay trillions for defense to protect whom exactly?
So “we the people” are paying to protect Intl Business interests?
We are international business interest. We are few people, (remember there is only 303 million of us out of 6.6 billion world wide) and yet have the highest GDP.
We are modern business and I am damned proud of that fact.
So “we” all get to pay for “some” companies to prosper, and others go under?
Thanks, the one thing that bothers me about “internationalism” is the mechanics of “how” that works are never discussed, thanks for your frankness.
If our military is to ensure business runs smoothly, then why not say so? And you have.
And the “we” have nothing to do with prosper and not prosper. I have been in both, my failures were mine, no one else's...
If you want to understand international business there are books and classes, but move quick, it changes. Silly capitalist and that useless free market of theirs...
Is there Governmental involvement in a free market?
And do we have a “free market” or an increasingly Oligopolic market?
Actually 99% of “we the people” do not give Ron Paul any chance as a Presidential candidate. This thread is so scripted. I hope you Paul supporters are having fun talking among yourselves.
Who pays you to hate Ron Paul so much?
Are you so out of intellectual bullets that you have to reference polls? Paul has been as high as 3%, not that it matters particualrly, as his ideas and principles are more important to me, then his poll numbers.
So I ask again, has any other candidate mentioned Sarbannes/Oxley so far?
Given the current rash of mergers and the like, one could cede that they are fewer players, but we have been there before. The market will balance out as it has for decades. Big companies become inefficient and someone will pick up the slack. Indeed may small businesses have been started for that very reason.
In a free market there was never any guarantee of a level playing field anyways. Been there done that.
To deflect the political heat from the Enron and WorldCom collapses.
Dr. Paul is my hero.
Federal Governmental and State Spending is at least 18% of the US Economy, the largest employer in the US is Walmart, number 2 is...The Goverment.
That is “why” I question whether or not such a huge apparatus to protect essentially private activity is the best use of taxpayers funds, it seems to me we are trading money paid in taxes for lower prices, a sort of snake eating it’s tail excercise.
Markets consolidate, that is the nature of things, however we may be seeing the rise of the Oligopolies right now, in sections that it will be hard to compete in such as Energy and Retailing and Banking and Media.
Be wrong on foreign policy trumps all other qualifications combined.
Maybe you should stick to the topic. Or do you even know what SOX is?
Translation:
Please stop, you are confusing us with Ron Paul's own words.
What does your congresscritter think of it?
“Being wrong on foreign policy disqualifies him...”
More or less, like it or not, we have important national and corporate interests in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dr. Paul may realize that or he may not, either way he made his stance on Iraq clear, and that makes him unelectable as a Repulbican, as much as I agree with Dr. No, he is off base on foreign policy at this point in time.
His ideas on other things are spot on, SOX for example, the debt and the deficit, role of government in “We the people’s” everyday lives.
It is my hope that some candidate basically picks up the good of Dr. Paul’s stances and leaves the unwise behind.
The only Republican candidate that I can see doing that is Fred Thompson, not Rudy nor Romney, though i do like Romney, he is no Constitutional Originalist.
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