If you have a business in America it looks like you don't need to borrow money from this corrupt government for them to try to intimidate you and make you bow to their will. This is the state of this country. How quickly we have degenerated right before our eyes. Witness the upcoming inquisition that Rep Henry Waxman is about to convene in a few weeks:
Now, Waxman is targeting the heads of Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon and AT&T with invitations they cant refuse to testify at an April 21 hearing on their public statements regarding Demcare-caused writedowns. Waxmans fishing expedition letters sent out last week asked the company heads to produce copious documentation.
Business execs are damned if they do disclose how the costs of the new federal health care taxes will hit their bottom line and damned if they dont. If they stay silent, theyll be violating Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure requirements passed by Congress after the Enron scandal. If they talk, theyll be paraded in front of the camera like those poor tobacco heads Waxman waxed more than 15 years ago.
Whos next? On Monday, Prudential said it would take a $100 million charge in the first quarter thanks to Demcare. In Colorado, the Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. said the health care law will cost $2 million a year starting in 2014. AK Steel Corp., 3M and Valero Energy have all announced similar writedowns. At this rate, if Waxman insists on hauling up every last truth-teller in the marketplace, hell be holding an inquisition-a-thon a day.
Michelle Malkin