DES MOINES, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2007
Edwards: Demand Corporate Responsibility
Proposals Include Limiting Compensation, Disclose Lobbying, Ensure Consumer Protections
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Democratic presidential hopeful former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards delivers his policy address on corporate responsibility, Friday, Oct. 26, 2007, in Des Moines, Iowa. Edwards said his plan would demand corporate responsibility, including limits on executive compensation packages and requirements that big businesses operate more openly. His plan would also restore retirement security for the middle class through tax reforms and savings help. (AP)
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The presidential candidate said his plan would also restore retirement security for the middle class through tax reforms and savings help, allowing more people to put aside money and purchase stock from companies. He said those companies would perform better for regular workers under his proposed corporate reforms.
"What does Washington do while corporate profits climb and the wealth of the very wealthiest grows - all at the expense of the vast majority of hardworking Americans? It circles the wagons around the people who are already doing the best," Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery that were provided to The Associated Press. "Instead of protecting the compact of equal opportunity and shared prosperity, Washington protects corporate profits and hoards prosperity."
Under his plan, Edwards wants to:
The former North Carolina senator said it's important to force companies to honor their pension promises. In recent years, he said, about two-thirds of companies have frozen their plans, and many workers are seeing cutbacks in their pensions. Companies also should not be allowed to classify workers as contractors to avoid paying them benefits, Edwards said.
Edwards, who wants to mandate universal health care, said businesses should be required to provide coverage for their workers, or help them purchase coverage.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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- All of these worthless mainstream Democrats are out there trying to come up with some bogus package to peddle to the American people for their votes. Edwards is going to allow the borders to stay open and let the trade treaties stand and he imagines that the profit margins will magically appear for companies to raise wages. It all sounds so nice and snuggly, I''d be almost tempted to vote for him myself...if I were a lobotomized monkey.
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- I am opposed to anyone who will tamper with my social security (which is about all I will have in 10 years). I agree with the caps on Boards and CEO''s but don''t expect me to participate in the stock market as it is full of corruptions from one end to the other and I would never put my retirment in the hands of the stock market. So No to a forced personal account if it has to do with the stock market. You just lost my vote!
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- More meaningless ''reforms'' from this Bilderberger ambulance chaser. I''ve never had a satisfactory correspondence with his office. He will have a bigger and better FDA to protect you by burning stevia cookbooks and regulating vitamins and supplements while the mass murderers at Merck go free after killing tens of thousands with VIOXX--knowing full well the danger of this drug.
If you want to end corporate fascism, you can start with an income tax that is on the gross incomes with no write-offs and tax expenditures...at a flat rate. - Reply to this comment
- TOO LATE EDWARDS ... THE COLLAPSE OF THIS CORPORATE FASCISM IS INEVITABLE...
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- I support Congressman, Ron Paul for President. There is something homespun about Paul, reminiscent of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He communicates with his constituents through birthday cards, August barbecues and the cookbooks his wife puts together every election season, which mix photos of grandchildren, Gospel passages and neighbors'' recipes for Velveeta cheese fudge and Cherry Coke salad. He is listed in the phone book, and his constituents call him at home. But there is also something cosmopolitan and radical about him; his speeches can bring to mind the World Social Forum or the French international-affairs periodical Le Monde Diplomatique. Ron Paul represents a different Republican Party from the one that Iraq, deficits and corruption have soured the country on. His school of Republicanism, which had its last serious national airing in the Goldwater campaign of 1964, stands for a certain idea of the Constitution the idea that much of the power asserted by modern presidents has been usurped from Congress, and that much of the power asserted by Congress has been usurped from the states. Though Paul acknowledges flaws in both the Constitution (it included slavery) and the Bill of Rights (it doesn''t go far enough), he still thinks a comprehensive array of positions can be drawn from them: against gun control; for the sovereignty of states; and against foreign-policy adventures like the one underway in Iraq, and soon Iran.
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- He manufactures it, he''''s lawyer
Posted by jowand at 12:34 PM : Oct 27, 2007
Pretty meaningless statement. Anything relevant to back it up? Substantive?
btw, you never posted your background for condemning Pelosi yesterday, you just ran away. - Reply to this comment
- Edwards should sell snake oil.
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Posted by drivelphobe at 01:43 AM : Oct 27, 2007
He manufactures it, he''''s lawyer
Posted by jowand at 12:34 PM : Oct 27, 2007
Looks like the snakes out coming out in droves this morning.
No matter how you slice it, your biggest snake in the white house has killed 4000 of your fellow Americans, all in an attempt to enrich himself and his cronies. - Reply to this comment
- I used to like Edwards but he turned out to be a lightweight.
This plan is making me rethink my position. - Reply to this comment
- Edwards should sell snake oil.
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Posted by drivelphobe at 01:43 AM : Oct 27, 2007
He manufactures it, he''s lawyer - Reply to this comment
- "If you try to control executive compensation, companies will go private."
Most can''t afford to, but let them. Too many companies demand concessions from employees while executive compensation rises.
"It is not the government''s job to force employers to give employees pension plans."
No, but it is the government''s job to enforce existing agreements instead of allowing companies to reneg on promises made to employees. A contract is a contract between businesses, but using your logic, a contract is NOT a contract between businesses and their employees.
"If an employee doesn''t like the situation, then leave. If they make employment opportunites unattractive, they will not have employees."
Not if everybody''s doing it. You''re extremely naive if you think employees have that much choice or other places to go.
"Employers don''t owe anything to employees unless it''s in an employment contract."
And if it''s in that contract and the employers decide to back out of it?
The one thing you got right is that companies do what''s best for the company leadership, and if American workers have rights they simply offshore to a place where the workers have none. It guarantees short-term profits, but can have serious repercussions on the company itself long-term.
I''m not a huge fan of unions, but there needs to be a balance between workers and management. This country was built on the idea that a deal is a deal. Right now corporations have an out, and they''re using it. - Reply to this comment
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
