Neither corporate crimes nor remedies have been featured in George W. Bush's or John Kerry's rhetoric; even as more corruption is exposed daily. It's the living-in-a-plastic-bubble approach to campaigning.

Despite a steady flow of fraud disclosures, bankruptcies, downgrades and resultant lay-offs and nest-egg losses, neither man has dared whisper the word Enron. We barely heard the word Halliburton until John Edwards brought it up in the vice-presidential debates. Cheney, who owns more than 433,000 Halliburton options, waved off accusations that his connections had landed Halliburton an 800-percent increase in government contracts (paid for with our tax dollars). Old news, he'd have us believe.

Is it possible they think we've moved past Enron's cooked books? WorldCom's implosion? Fannie Mae investigations? Do they really not get it?

Or is it that they don't want to take any responsibility for fixing it?

Because it's not old news. The cheap money that banks funneled into a deregulated corporate America lingers like a bad smell. While Bush painted his rosy picture of the economy, AT&T announced that it will slash 12,000 jobs this year. Bank of America is cutting 17,000 jobs. GM got its credit rating slashed to almost junk the day it announced 12,000 layoffs in Europe. Days later, the car giant hit our shores, announcing 900 job cuts, to start.

Conflicts of interest abound in a financial services industry that both creates and sells the same stuff. Last year's $1.4-billion Wall Street settlement with 10 banks was supposed to reform the business. Since then we've seen mutual fund scandals galore, and this month Attorney General Eliot Spitzer opened fire on the world's largest insurance broker, Marsh & McLennan. It was the managers' fault that their stock got pummeled and their employee pension plans shriveled by 50 percent, shades of Enron in our own backyard.

Bad news keeps coming, but Bush and Kerry refuse to examine the systemic problems, or the high correlation of corporate malfeasance to job losses. Instead, we hear about tax plans for individuals. Bush insists his tax cuts have helped the middle class. Kerry wants to roll back cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of the country. That's great, but the middle class is 98 percent of the country? Not exactly a classic definition of "middle." Ralph Nader seems to be the only presidential candidate aware of ongoing corporate scandals and their consequences for the republic.

The two main candidates aren't discussing re-regulating corporate behavior, or re-invigorating regulatory bodies funded by our tax dollars to monitor it. But that doesn't mean they're ignoring corporations.

On corporate taxes, they agree: Cut them. Forget the fact that the Government Accountability Office, a non-partisan Washington entity, said 60 percent of U.S. companies paid no federal taxes during the stock market boom of the 1990s. Enron even got a tax rebate of $381 million; former employees and shareholders did not.

Corporate America was rewarded for gross misconduct with $170 billion of fresh tax breaks this May, passed 92-5 by the Senate. It got another $136-billion tax break on Oct. 11. Kerry, out campaigning, missed both votes, but promised to reduce corporate taxes another 5 percent if elected.

In order to find a solution to runaway fraud and economic ruin, we need to identify the source of the problem. Then deal with it. That's the job of a leader.

We could hack a chunk off the deficit by increasing, not decreasing, corporate taxes. Or by invoking a flat tax on corporate profit that actually adds to the federal government's bottom line. The Securities and Exchange Commission should reinforce existing regulations pre-emptively, not after the fact or an Eliot Spitzer fraud investigation.

Any administration should recognize that future economic stability is predicated on restoring some integrity to the financial and corporate system. Where's that "Pottery Barn" rule now? Break the regulations, own the mess, fix the problem. We need to hold corporate America accountable to greater America - that's helping the middle class.

Nomi Prins is the author of "Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America," and senior fellow at the public policy center Demos.

© 2004 Newday, Inc.

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