Yesterday, President Bush said in his speech that he was calling on Congress to provide $100 million in additional funding to the SEC in the coming year. Salon Premium reports today that Bush nixed a similar funding increase last year, saying that the additional funding was unjustified. That’s just one of many steps he took to defang the SEC, starting with appointing an insider to run the agency. Now that we’re entering a new era of corporate responsibility, I guess we’ve decided that perhaps the SEC serves a useful function and isn’t just there to piss off campaign contributors.