Politicians Lend Their Aid

Enron made substantial campaign contributions to many politicians of both parties. Reporters looking for specific favors that office holders provided to Enron in return have apparently found little. But this doesn't mean that Enron received nothing for its political contributions.

There were, in fact, decisions of regulatory agencies that were favorable to Enron, and Congress played a role in championing these. Perhaps favorable decisions would have been made in the absence of political contributions, but perhaps not.

“Let's get real, folks,” wrote Rich Karlgaard, Publisher of Forbes, in discussing the Enron collapse. “Tax and accounting laws are written as favors to one group or another and are manipulated with impunity in practice.”^[26] Certainly Enron received tax and accounting advantages and manipulated the regulations with years of impunity in practice.

Further, Enron pursued its transformation into a fast-growing Internet company without interference from the many regulatory commissions—including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Fed, the Labor Department, and others—any of which were in a position to challenge it. “While each agency was doing its narrowly defined job, nobody was protecting shareholders,” wrote a commentator for a new economy magazine.^[27]