Posted on 03/28/2010 10:37:37 AM PDT by American Dream 246
Dems Threaten Congressional Show Trials After US Companies Leak Real Economic Damage of Obamacare
Late last week several US corporations leaked how the democrat’s health care bill will kill their businesses. The radicals in Congress were not pleased that these corporations would go public with this devastating information. In response, democrats threatened to call for Congressional show trials to publicly humiliate these corporations. The Wall Street Journal reported:
It’s been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.
This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”
…Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment “appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.”
In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden. Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don’t like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.
On top of AT&T’s $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks.
The last paragraph says it all about the democrat’s trickery:
The Democratic political calculation with ObamaCare is the proverbial boiling frog: Gradually introduce a health-care entitlement by hiding the true costs, hook the middle class on new subsidies until they become unrepealable, but try to delay the adverse consequences and major new tax hikes so voters don’t make the connection between their policy and the economic wreckage. But their bill was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.
Byron York at The Washington Examiner has more on the show trials.
Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances — a move one committee Republicans describes as “an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents of the Democrats’ flawed health care reform legislation.”
…Waxman has ordered the executives to explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative subcommittee. That subcommittee just happens to be chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who held out his vote on health care reform until a few hours before final passage on March 21, giving the bill’s opponents the unfounded hope that he might vote against it.
Waxman’s demands came Friday in letters to several executives. “After the president signed the health care reform bill into law, your company announced that provisions in the law could adversely affect your ability to provide health insurance,” Waxman wrote to Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T. A few hours before Waxman sent his letter, AT&T announced it will take a $1 billion charge against earnings because of the tax provision in the new health bill. AT&T also said it will be “evaluating prospective changes” to its health care benefits for all workers…
Waxman’s request could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.
These democrats in Washington are nothing but thugs. They’ll try anything to keep the truth from coming out about their disastrous legislation.
Maybe they've learned from GM & Chrysler, whose execs tried making those deals and got fired for it. Crocodile's NOT gonna eat you last, boys.
Rabid dogs.
Nice post-—thanks
Come on America, wake up!
Vote these bastards out . .once and for all
“Dems Threaten Congressional Show Trials After US Companies Leak Real Damage of Obamacare”
HELL YEAH! Which CEO will have the COJONES to stand up to these Socialist bullies?
On the contrary, I hope they ALL show up and give it to these cretins right between the eyes, then immediately shift their Home Offices to New Zealand.
The Democrat Thug-acracy we foolishly elected continues to destroy America brick by brick. It makes one want to shoot every last one of them.
COMMUNICATIONS!!! Another segment the Millstoners couldn’t “bribe off.” And another heap load that has caused corporations to leave and go elsewhere, to where one CAN do real business.
The Millstoners....(Thou shall not steal.20:15
Thou shall not covet ... 20:17 (full text follows).....) theives can’t stand the light. They’ll supress the real truth from coming out. So I posted the following on another thread: Staying “on watch” here and....
preparing TO TELL WHAT IS HAPPENING
But KNOW THIS, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have WATCHED, and not have suffered his house to be broken into. Luke 12:39
Level I Watch/Action:
1. The first front is that of COMMUNICATION. Your good neighbor of surrounding locations need to be on full alert (watch), so as you may be able at all times to COMMUNICATE/inform them as to what is happening....as the thefts may come in different forms.
A. Perhaps unannounced debit of bank acct. assets. Tell immediately your trusted neighbors.
B. Information notices to force ones hands in revealing personal information related to so called health matters. Example. personal health history, name of physicians, clinics, records. Mental health type questions. Tell your trusted neighbors
C. Employer history (complete).
D. Health competency fee/tax test for firearms.
E. Health property inspections. Health inspections of domestic fireplaces, woodstoves. Inspections and approvals of burn media. Again all of the above tell your trusted neighbors.
F. On site and domestic private “health transportation inspections”
G. Any so called health item, which can mean anything related “environmental”, (including pets) Communicate to neighbors.
Level II Watch/Action
A. Asset debits
B. Wage/income garnishment.
B. Partial property seizure
Level III/Action
A. Forcing bankruptcy through legal fees.
B. Complete seizure.
I am preparing to appeal to friends and neighbors by communications, legal letters, etc., for notification as to what is happening.
Any one of either Level I(A), or II, and III thefts, may set off the next Lexington Green, in the form of cellcommunity town resistance to these thefts and privacy violations. From there, unfortunately escalations, the first and most significant will be “Fort Ticonderoga II”
Yes. And in November 2010, WE THE PEOPLE will have OUR say about all this crap.
Wouldn’t you love to see the captains of business come to capital hill and ask the Congress, “Because of the abomination of a bill you passed we are now forced to lay off half our work forces and we want you all to explain to them why..” Wouldn’t happen but would be a wonderful thought....
Isn’t that the truth. Yes, I’d love it, and you’re probably right. Too bad to.
I would too, but for the opposite reasons. It will show America their true colors, and the majority will not like the colors they see.
Fascist Nostrildumbass strikes again.
Does anyone have any theories?
Well, gee, those companies will have to discover their backbones whilst asking themselves why they donated to Dhimmicrat campaigns.
Not corporately of course, but employees most certainly did, and in massive amounts, this is what they wound up with and it should serve as a good lesson in ‘not getting a little bit pregnant”.
most union members have to be told how to vote and also what to think...this is just telling them WHY they should think what they already vote and thing.
This way your local SEIUer rat neighbor can tell you why it pays to be a good comrade.
I’m no socialist, Obama tells CEOs
President Barack Obama told business leaders Wednesday that he’s no socialist plotting a government takeover of the economy.
His administration isn’t anti-business, he said in a speech to the Business Roundtable, an organization of chief executive officers of major U.S. corporations. “It’s pro-America and I don’t apologize for it.”
“Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, I am an ardent believer in the free market,” Obama said. “I believe businesses like yours are the engines of economic growth in this country.”
Reuters President Barack Obama.
“I firmly believe that America’s success in large part depends on your success,” Obama said.
“We are all in this together,” he said in asking the business leaders to help him create a smarter government that will be pro-growth and pro-jobs. Obama’s remarks came on the eve of a high-stakes summit with congressional leaders about the way forward on health-care reform, momentum for which seems to have stalled on Capitol Hill just short of the finish line. ...
“Government hasn’t stepped in to supplant private enterprise, but to catalyze it — to create the conditions for entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and survive,” Obama said.
Government’s role has properly been limited to three areas, Obama said.
First, it’s involved in setting up the basic rules of the marketplace to ensure “honest competition, fair dealing, and a level playing field,” he said. “On balance, those rules have been good for business, not bad.”
(Excerpt)
“The devil’s greatest trick is to convince people that they don’t really exist.”
It’s the same with socialists,fascists or marxist.
“The RATS new moto is: W.W.H.D.
What Would Hitler Do?”
That would make an excellent tag line. Wish I had thought of it.
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