When Silence Speaks Volumes
From William Lucy, Secretary-Treasurer
Remember George W. Bush touting Dick Cheney's business experience as one of the reasons Cheney was picked as the vice-presidential running mate during the 2000 election?
As then-campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes put it, "The American people should be pleased that they have a vice-presidential nominee who has become a success in the private sector, who led a company that under his management doubled in size and became the world's largest and most innovative energy services company in the world. "
Bush's choice illustrated a familiar right-wing message: If left to the workings of the business marketplace, much of the world's ailments can be fixed.
From Reagan on up
That type of thinking led to Ronald Reagan's effort to roll back four decades of governmental policies and put more money into the hands of Big Business. In the mid-1990s, it helped a Republican-controlled Congress attack critical domestic programs. Today, we hear that position put forth in debates ranging from Social Security to school vouchers.
As we witness corporate scandals rocking our nation, the contrast between the market-driven view of the world and how that view actually affects — and sometimes destroys — peoples' everyday lives has never been more clear. Just look at Enron, Global Crossing, Arthur Andersen, Tyco, ImClone, and WorldCom (see Executive Greed: A Plague of Corporate Scandals).
And take a long look at Halliburton, the oil-services giant where Cheney served as CEO.
The company is under a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for accounting changes made during Cheney's tenure that might have allowed revenue to be overstated by $445 million from 1999 to 2001 — making it possible for him to haul in nearly $30 million from stocks he sold before the inauguration. Later, the company's portfolio took a 76 percent nose dive, putting Cheney in the ranks of other CEOs who unloaded their stock just in time.
Business smarts?
Despite his supposed acumen, the vice president has remained disturbingly quiet as the SEC investigation has proceeded. (And by the way, there is little evidence of that acumen because he had no business experience before Halliburton, having served as Pres. Gerald Ford's chief of staff, as a congressman, and as secretary of defense during the Gulf War.)
Still, this much is clear: Under Cheney's direction, the company's subsidiaries in offshore tax havens quintupled between 1995 and 2000. That's tax money that could have been used to help fund a wide assortment of programs working families depend on.
And when the former defense secretary wasn't busy finding ways Halliburton could avoid paying its taxes, he was making sure the government was paying Halliburton. Under his direction, the company happened to win a decade-long, $1.1-billion Defense Department contract, thereby doubling the value of its government contracts.
Despite his silence about Halliburton today, Dick Cheney's actions as the company's top dog speak volumes to American workers. Those actions also stand as one more example of why we've got to work this year and in the coming months to put into office candidates who understand the issues that matter to working families. And of why we must turn out in huge numbers Nov. 5 to put honest, pro-worker candidates into office.
