November 26, 2012
Dear members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
I am writing to urge the SEC to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending.
Both shareholders and the public must be fully informed as to how much the corporation spends on politics and which candidates are being promoted or attacked. Disclosures should be posted promptly on the SEC's web site.
But more to the point, corporations are not people and should not be allowed to spend anything on political campaigns. Owners and employees of corporations have the same right to vote as the rest of us which they are free to exercise without pressure or redress from their employers. Campaign contribution limitations should be set at an amount that does not give wealthy citizens an unfair advantage. Such contributions should be limited to owners and employees only. No funding of campaigns should be coming directly from corporations, since corporations are by nature special interest entities and in no way represent the will of the people.
Corporations and the business community at large need to to focus on the economic health of the nation and less on the greedy few.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Jim Sadler