redblueamerica.com

Remember this from last week?

In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years.

Now there's this:

The IRS's scrutiny of the biggest U.S. companies is running at a 20-year low, according to the study, conducted by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, a research group affiliated with Syracuse University.

The study, made public Sunday, points to "a historic collapse in audits." It found that major corporations - defined as those with assets of at least $250 million - have about a one in four chance of being audited, down from about three in four in 1990.

Just to sum up:

* The Bush Administration doesn't care to look for wrongdoing by big business anymore.

* It won't prosecute them even if they find it.

Now you can make the argument -- as my business-friendly conservative friends no doubt will -- that this is a good thing, that encumbering businesses with rules and investigations just makes them want to leave the U.S. and take their capital with them. Fair enough. Except for this:

Individuals have about a 10 percent chance of being audited, more than double the odds in 2000, according to the IRS.

So the Administration has been going soft on businesses while getting tougher on individuals. Because that's where the real money is, right?