Washington — U.S. President George W. Bush, striving to shield himself from public anger over a growing list of accounting scandals, promised Saturday not to let an unethical few in corporate America "tarnish our entire free enterprise system."
Mr. Bush defended his administration and the Republican Party against Democratic criticism that their laissez-faire attitude toward business has helped create the problems.
"Despite recent abuses of the public's trust, our economy remains fundamentally sound and strong," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address. "No violation of the public's trust will be tolerated. The federal government will be vigilant in prosecuting wrongdoers to ensure that investors and workers maintain the highest confidence in American business."
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The President's scolding of big business, his fourth in as many days, could barely keep up with events.
Mr. Bush referred, though not by name, to WorldCom's disclosure earlier this week that it misrepresented $3.8-billion (U.S.) in expenses. By Friday, Xerox had announced it, too, had overstated revenues by billions of dollars.
"Confidence is the cornerstone of our economic system, so a few bad actors can tarnish our entire free enterprise system," Bush said. "America is ushering in a new era of responsibility and that ethic of responsibility must extend to America's boardrooms."
He listed administration efforts against corporate fraud: quick investigations into and actions against companies by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a 10-point plan that includes taking ill-gotten gains back from company executives and denying them the chance to serve on boards of directors.
Mr. Bush's address, recorded Friday, was broadcast on the day he underwent a colon screening by military doctors at Camp David, Md. Because short-term sedation was involved, Mr. Bush turned over the powers of the presidency for just over two hours during the procedure to Vice-President Dick Cheney.
U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, also used the Democrats' weekly radio address to criticize corporate misconduct. "We are facing a crisis of confidence that is eroding the public's trust in our markets and poses a real threat to our economic health," he said. "We ignore it at our peril."
Mr. Sarbanes, D-Md., urged passage of his bill to tighten oversight of the accounting industry with a new private-sector body. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the President might support the legislation when it goes to the Senate floor next month if it is changed to give the SEC greater administrative authority.
Mr. Bush has hit the issue hard as internal Republican polling shows him and his party vulnerable on the topic. He plans a July 9 speech on Wall Street as well.
Democrats, eager for political gains in this November elections that will decide control of the House and Senate, were seizing the moment, too.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., opened Friday's business on the Senate floor with a denunciation of "a deregulatory, permissive atmosphere that has relied too much on corporate America to police itself." He listed companies that have been in hot water, including Halliburton, where Mr. Cheney was chief executive before winning the vice-presidency.
The economy perennially tops voters' lists of concerns, and a poll released this week suggest both parties are right to pay attention to the accounting scandals.
The nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that, while Mr. Bush's overall job approval remained strong at 70 per cent, only one-third of Americans believe he is "doing all he can" on the economy.
Mr. Fleischer said potential political ramifications were not behind Mr. Bush's strong words. "The president was just outraged ... that's why the president went out and spoke about it as strongly as he did," he said.
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