April 28, 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.
This country was created as a democracy with the intention of equality and opportunity for its citizens. While that is not yet fully realized for all Americans, giving more than equality to corporations, is a massive system pertubation that will, in the end, obliterate the vote of the individual. Our system is being progressively broken by the influence of money, and people can't keep up with or effectively counterbalance corporate wealth and power. If you want to continue the momentum of eliminating democracy and creating plutocracy, by allowing the current status quo that was effectively decided by five people, then you will do nothing. If you want to support democracy, then you will act to at the very least make disclosure mandatory.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Trula Thompson, MD, MPH