President Obama's budget has earmarked about $1.3 billion for the regulator, which represents a 12 percent hike over its fiscal 2010 budget.

When aberrations such as the Madoff Ponzi scheme went undetected for years, some had attributed that embarrassment to the aforementioned lack of resources.

Which is why I found a recent report somewhat disturbing on a number of SEC employees that had been caught surfing the Web - not to monitor financial transactions - but rather attempting to access porn sites.

Apparently, in a story first broken by the Washington Times as a result of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, some at the Commission were far more motivated to follow the physical contortions of Jenna Jameson or Amber Lynn, than, say, the financial statements and off-the-curve returns of Bernard Madoff Securities.

Rough two dozen employees over the past two years have been caught attempting to access X-rated URLs including one unidentified supervisor who made about 1,800 attempts (no, that's not a misprint) but was rebuffed because of the software filters.

Now, I've witnessed firsthand two instances where colleagues of mine were immediately jettisoned for viewing porn, no hearing, no second chances, just a box to pack up and then an escort out.

But in true government employee tradition, the SEC supervisor was given a reprimand for "wasting time and using agency assets."

And sadly, that's not a misprint either.

Not only that, but reportedly after being grilled by internal investigators, the supervisor revealed that the X-rated viewing at the agency had been going on for a while and actually boasted that he had navigated ways around the SEC's monitoring software.

After a decades-long thread of incompetence was revealed in the Madoff scandal, many rightfully called the agency's reputation and oversight into question, and there were rumors of transferring the SEC's power to a super-regulator.

If the agency hopes to rebuild its shaky image and show that it is deserving of the budget increase, not to mention respect, it needs to do the right thing in this situation.

Send the hormonally challenged offenders packing and let them view all the porn they want from the comfort and privacy of their home!