Financial Disclosure for High-Level Executive Officials: The Current System and the New Commitment

Since January 1977, there has been a new commitment to ethics in both the Congress and the executive branch of the Government. The new administration has made financial disclosure and ethics a high priority, with the President requiring his appointees to publicly disclose their financial interests. The President has proposed legislation to the Congress that would expand safeguards against actual or potential conflicts of interest on the part of executive branch officials, create a new program of public disclosure, create an Office of Government Ethics, and strengthen and broaden the post-Government employment restrictions.