For once, Dick Cheney is useful for something (sort of). Today’s Associated Press report on Bush and Cheney’s personal income tax filings offers a perfect example why the voluntary release of personal income tax returns by our gubernatorial candidates is so important. Click to read: Bushes Pay $187,768 in taxes for 2005.
Hasn’t it been helpful to know that Dick Cheney has been drawing more than $210,000 annually from Halliburton throughout his entire tenure as White House puppetmaster?
The Cheneys’ income included the vice president’s $205,031 government salary and $211,465 in deferred compensation from Halliburton Co., the Dallas-based energy services firm he headed until Aug. 16, 2000.
Cheney elected in December 1998 to recoup over five years a portion of the money he made in 1999 as chief executive officer of Halliburton. This amount was to be paid in annual installments — with interest — after Cheney’s retirement from Halliburton. The 2005 payment is the last.
We all knew Cheney was going to be Big Energy’s best buddy when he was paired with Bush, but the fact that he was still on their payroll while personally orchestrating the administration’s energy policies was beyond the pale. When Halliburton was receiving no-bid contracts during the reconstruction of Iraq: Cheney was still drawing a check. When energy companies met privately with the Vice President to draft the administration’s energy plan: Dick was on the company dole (and still refusing to hand over his notes). Quite literally, Halliburton’s check was in the mail.
Of course, this is not new information, since Cheney has been required to annually report his income under federal law. However, it is a perfect example of the type of conflict that a voluntary disclosure of personal income by our gubernatorial and LG candidates can either confirm or dispel. What private interests might have access to the corner office on Beacon Hill? Who might have leverage in the decision-making processes that affect ordinary citizens? Who might have a conflict of interest that would cast a shadow over the important public decisions (both good and bad) confronting our state? Nobody should be presumed guilty by association. That is why conflicts like Cheney-Halliburton are best addressed by making them public and addressing them before the issue arises (unlike Cheney in this instance).
These are questions we will not have to ask about Tom Reilly, Andrea Silbert, or Tim Murray. Their income tax returns are out there and not a word has been written that would remotely suggest the level of invasiveness cited by the millionaire candidates as justification for opting out of the process. Since the disclosure is so easy and painless, these are questions that we should not have to ask any candidate for our highest offices, whether they be a Republican or a Democrat.
The time to answer these questions is now so that they do not arise at a less opportune moment, for the good of our candidates and for the good of our state.
