Regulation now.

• Position: Comment

Hearing George W. Bush boast about passing what he called "the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt" certainly gave us pause.

To throw up.

The idea that George W. Bush can now claim to be in the tradition of FDR is enough to make even those with the sturdiest stomachs lose it. Here's a guy who came to power proclaiming the need for less regulation, not more. And here's a guy who is up to his smirk in the very-shenanigans he now condemns.

What's more, Bush opposed this new law in its early stages and came around to it only after one financial scandal after another sent the stock market plunging--and the public into uproar.

No champion he.

The new law does do several good things, however. It ups the penalties for corporate fraud, and creates a new felony for securities fraud that is punishable by a twenty-year prison sentence.

It bans companies from making personal loans to top executives (which Bush enjoyed while he was at Harken, incidentally).

It prohibits corporate executives from selling stock when their employees are not allowed to do so. (This should be called the "Ken Lay Provision," since he was cashing in his stock while Enron employees were forced to hold on to theirs, even as it plummeted.)

It requires CEOs to certify the financial books of their companies.

It establishes an oversight board to regulate auditors.

It limits some of the consulting that auditors can perform for their clients.

It adds protection for corporate whistleblowers.

And it boosts funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission by 44 percent.

But it doesn't go far enough.

As the watchdog group Citizen Works noted, the standard for finding a CEO guilty was raised, in conference, from "reckless" behavior to "knowing" behavior. This "will make it harder for prosecutors to prove cases," the group notes. And the new law "does not extend responsibility for corporate fraud to accountants, lawyers, and banks, all of whom make fraud possible," it adds.

The law also does nothing about the scandal of corporations granting stock options to executives and not counting those stock options as expenses. These stock options gave executives a huge personal incentive to pump up the value of their companies' stock. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was as much at fault as anyone on this one, since he refused to go along with draft legislation that would have forced companies to list stock options as expenses.

Nor...