February 3, 2013
Dear Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
It's long past time to end secret political spending by corporations.
We hear so much about transparency being the key to making democracy work. As we continue to discover more and more about all the problems in our capitalist democracy it is quite apparent that the public has been kept in the dark on a host of issues. We basically don't find out until something bad has occurred. Even then it takes years until the whole truth is revealed. This is the SEC's opportunity to put democracy to work or at least give it a chance to work in the market place. Not all citizens are shareholders and yet even shareholders don't really know how the profits of corporations and the financial sector are spent to influence the legislative process that does effect all citizens.
So 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,
Philip Mitzkavich