February 2, 2013
Dear Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
We as a people should stop secret political spending by corporations. It allows the few that are in charge of a corporation's spending to spend funds in a way that supports their own views, and not necessarily those views that are in support of the entire corporation. At a minimum, these funds may not be spent in support of a given corporation's mission statement.
Furthermore, the general public should not be submitted to propaganda that comes from large third-party funds, as media advertisements bought with such funding dilute the voice of the public. For the purpose of this communication I would define "the public" made up of the individual citizens therein, as corporations tend to have a much larger showing of opinion than anyone one individual.
For these reasons, I strongly support the SEC issuing a rule in the near future that would require publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their spending on political activities.
Both shareholders and the public deserve to know how much a given corporation spends on politics (directly and through intermediaries), and which candidates are being promoted or attacked.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Steven M. Link