To the editor:

While I’m relieved that President Bush finally appears to have seen the light and proposed a significant increase in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s budget to stop the mushrooming corporate scandals of the last few years, that step alone is not enough to ensure that ordinary investors are protected from unscrupulous securities firms. The SEC must change its relaxed attitude toward corporate corruption and start taking meaningful measures to prevent and discourage it, such as banning the perpetrators from the securities business.

While New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer has far fewer resources at his disposal than the SEC, he has vigorously pursued insider scandals in his state at a much higher rate. This kind of fervent, investors-come-first attitude is what the SEC lacks. It seems like every day there is a new story about another scandal involving brokerages, hedge funds and/or mutual funds. The SEC consistently is behind the curve, reacting belatedly and cutting backroom deals to minimize the damage to the industry at investors’ expense.

The SEC must be more than the tool of Wall Street insiders. We can only hope that the thieves in the energy business will be fully prosecuted.

Richard Heckler,

Lawrence