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.
Efforts of corporations to act "like people" and have the rights they want to define are indefensible. If they want "person-hood", they need to accept the rights of ordinary citizens and limit their political spending like the rest of us are required to do. If they want to support a candidate, they must do it like the rest of us-- out their non tax-deductible funds. And they must make this public, otherwise, it becomes the power of wealth against those without money.
Just because they have money and power, they cannot be allowed to have it both ways; this is not the true American Way where we all are supposed to have equal justice under the law, where one person gets one vote and where we all are respected as Americans even if we have differing political opinions.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Gregory P. Hall