The Backseat Vice President

by Kevin Clang

In November 2008, the Democratic Party overtook both houses of Congress in an election that encapsulated exactly how the country was feeling at that moment. It was a repudiation of the far-right policies enacted by exiting President George W. Bush and echoed by many Republican Congressmen.

The Democratic victories left the Republican Party damaged and weakened in a way it had not been since taking over the majority in Congress in the mid-’90s. But a new question emerged: Who is the leader of the Republican Party?

At the time, the obvious answer was Sen. John McCain. Though he came up short in the electoral college, McCain was still a prominent figure in the GOP. But in his heart, McCain is a right-leaning moderate. He was never comfortable with many of the right wing policies he extolled during the campaign. Such wavering is not acceptable for someone who is the head of the party.

Like most defeated presidential candidates, McCain has remained mostly out of the spotlight since President Barack Obama took office in January.

For a while, it was assumed that McCain’s choice for vice president, Sarah Palin, would take up the reins. Though her personality polarized the country as a whole, the far-right faction of the GOP loved her. Then she quit her job in July, suddenly resigning before completing a full term as governor of Alaska.

The announcement sent shockwaves through the party. Since then, many candidates have attempted to step up to the forefront of the party, including South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Newt Gingrich, but none have been quite the right fit.
Now it seems one has emerged.

For the past six months, former Vice President Dick Cheney has been on television more often than he was during the entirety of Bush’s two terms. Though he has consistently stated he has no plans of seeking higher office, Cheney’s current agenda suggests otherwise. Several “Cheney 2012″ T-shirts, Web sites and editorials have popped up on the Internet.

Sunday was the height of his crusade against the president, so far. Cheney told the president to “stop the dithering” and to “do what it takes to win” in Afghanistan.

When Obama’s staff is critical of anything that occurred between 2000 and 2008, Cheney is quick with a retort. He has been on a rampage, defending his own record while renouncing Obama’s. All this takes place while he is being investigated by the FBI for his dealings in the Valerie Plame leak and the government’s use of torture.

For Cheney to be so publicly critical of the sitting president this early in Obama’s term is a definite shift from the politics of the past two decades.

Nary a word was heard from former President Bill Clinton or Vice President Al Gore during Bush’s formative first months. The same is true for Clinton’s first term in 1993. For the most part, former President George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot both stayed out of the spotlight.

The reason presidents do this is simple. It’s for the good of the country.

The American people made their decisions in November. They were decidedly against the Bush-Cheney philosophy of America first, questions later. Cheney may be unhappy with Obama’s choices as president so far, but he needs to realize he’s not the No. 2 man in Washington anymore.

The fact is, the economic crises, the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan were all inherited from the previous administration. No one asked for such obstacles, but they are dealing with them anyway. If the president wants advice from the person who helped cause such problems, he is free to ask for it.

Until then, Cheney should keep quiet.

Drawing the line in the sand about U.S. healthcare

by Kevin Clang

This month, Congress will go back to work hammering out legislation after their August recess. Among these Congressmen will be the famed “Gang of Six,” three Republican and three Democratic Senators from the Finance Committee who, for most of the summer, spent their time writing a bipartisan healthcare bill. The group, like most things in Washington, was formed with the best of intentions.

Democratic Party leadership has struggled to bring about the changes they promised in 2008. Photo from the Christian Science Monitor.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as planned. Two of the three Republican Senators have been unwilling to work with Democrats and seem intent on stopping the bill before it reaches the floor. Somewhere in the talks, bipartisanship got lost.

Let’s get one thing straight — President Barack Obama doesn’t need bipartisanship to pass his healthcare plan. With a comfortable majority in both the House and Senate, the Obama administration could have Congress draft a bill and then use some executive muscle to get it passed. It wouldn’t be pretty, but the plan would be enacted.

President George W. Bush used this method to pass bills such as the Patriot Act when Republicans held a slim majority in the House and were essentially deadlocked in the Senate. But Obama is not going to do this. He is, at his heart, a legislator first. A compromiser. He realizes that healthcare is a major issue in this country, and he seems committed to fixing it in a way that will please everybody.

The problem is that not everybody is willing to cooperate. He can’t please Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who said at a rally that Americans have to slit their wrists and make a covenant to make sure the bill doesn’t pass.

He can’t please former governor Sarah Palin, who fabricated the notion of death panels. He can’t please former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who has called Obama a McCarthyist who wants to “put terrorists on welfare.”

By trying to appease the far right, Democrats, particularly the president, are appearing weak. The agenda of hope and change that Obama advocated during his campaign is being abandoned for a watered down version, or, politics as usual.

This is how discussions about dropping the public option from health reform began. The public option, a government healthcare plan that would compete with private companies, is a good idea. It would help to keep insurance companies honest and stand as a cheaper option for those who cannot currently afford health coverage.

Los Angeles has had a similar system for more than a decade with its L.A. Care Health Plan, which has over 800,000 enrollees. The mostly successful Medicare is another good example of this. A public option is not only possible, it’s necessary to healthcare reform. The thought of a healthcare bill without a public option written in is staggering. Mandating citizens to purchase healthcare that is unaffordable would solve nothing.

Americans deserve healthcare reform. More than 70 million people in this country are either uninsured or underinsured. Insurance companies routinely drop clients just when they need coverage the most. The World Health Organization ranks America’s healthcare system at No. 37 in the world, behind countries such as Malta, Dominica and Oman. In a country as prosperous, principled and celebrated as the United States, the status quo is unacceptable.

Obama should stop letting Congress push him around. When the stimulus debate was raging, Republicans in Congress worried that the price tag was just too steep. Obama listened and compromised, lowering the cost of the bill by hundreds of billions of dollars. Turns out we didn’t spend enough, and now American unemployment is the highest it’s been in decades. He is now falling into the same trap.

Republicans have already made their decision: They want the president to fail. Obama needs to remind everyone that he is commander in chief and use his Democratic majority to his advantage now before he loses it next November.

Thomas Mac Mahon Speaks About Recessions, Bailouts, and the Economy at Elon University

by Kevin Clang

Thomas Mac Mahon, Chairman of the Board and former CEO of Laboratory America (LabCorp) came to Elon University’s Love School of Business on Thursday, February 12, to discuss how to manage a public company during the current economic downturn with Elon business students and faculty.

Thomas Mac Mahon

Recession-Proof

LabCorp is a medical testing facility with over 40 offices across the country, but mainly based in North Carolina.  They are the largest Cancer testing facility in the world and the largest employer in the Piedmont Region of North Carolina with over 4,000 workers.  This makes them one of the top five employers in the state.

The corporation runs thousands of tests every hour and about two million a day.  About 90 percent of these tests are returned to doctors offices within 24 hours of completion.  LabCorp posted $850 million in earnings in 2008.

“Recessions are very good for the health care industry,” said Mac Mahon, adding that increased stress during economically trying times often leads to more visits to the doctor.  Mac Mahon went as far to say that the health care industry is “recession-proof.”

Cash Is King

But not every industry is so lucky.  The best way to survive, according to Mac Mahon, is to “have a lot of cash on hand.”  Obsessively crunching numbers and using the standby ‘revenue minus expenses equals profit’ equation will never go away.  “Manage your company by the metrics,” Mac Mahon stated, “there is value in appreciating numbers.”

With cash, Mac Mahon stated a midsized company can then show strength in a down market by investing in growth by buying out smaller companies or repurchasing shares.   “By buying back your own shares, there are then less shares in the market, making their value rise.”  he explained.

Mac Mahon particularly stressed the need for the process of risk management, a technique used manage a company’s uncertainties and threats.  “Anticipate the negative, believe the worst will happen,”  he stressed.  “The concept of risk management is more important than ever.”  Mac Mahon believed that a greater attention to risk management may have saved the banking industry from their collapse in late 2008.

Plenty of Blame to Go Around

In the late 1990s, people were signing up for loans “equal to more than the value of their home,” said Mac Mahon, a drastic change from the past process.  Everything is fine until people can not afford to pay their bills, which Mac Mahon says “really hurts us.”

Mac Mahon stressed that we need to loosen up the markets in Washington, and that President Barack Obama’s plan to regulate CEO pay was a “serious mistake.”  If someone does a good job, he explained, they should be rewarded.  If they fail they should be fired.  Under his philosophy, there is no need to regulate pay: “Compensation should be linked to appreciation of stock, with no maximums.”

It is up to CEOs and Chairmen to make sure stock appreciation increases.  Mac Mahon encouraged Elon students to work hard and be ambitious, and in the end they would be rewarded for their efforts.  “People look for confidence in their leaders,” he said,  “communicate to the people who need to hear your story.”