From the Washington Examiner:
On Capitol Hill and in the White House on Monday, Democrats were fuming over a series of announcements that started Friday from Fortune 500 firms saying their bottom lines will take huge negative hits because of changes in tax law mandated by Obamacare. That hit in turn means lower profit projections. Caterpillar estimates, for example, that Obamacare will cost it $100 million; John Deere faces expenses of $150 million; 3M, $90 million; AK Steel, $31 million; Valero, $20 million. And then there’s AT&T, which is marking its balance sheet down by a whopping $1 billion. All in all, the Wall Street Journal estimated a $14 billion haircut for these corporations.
Under post-Enron accounting rules, the corporations were required to revise their projections to account for the effect of Obamacare on their bottom lines. The effect is negative because Democrats, in their zeal to raise revenues and improve Obamacare’s claimed effect on the federal deficit outlook, took away a tax break these companies needed in order to supply prescription drugs to their retirees. The tax subsidy, itself a government accounting ruse crafted in 2003 by the Republican Bush administration to dissuade corporations from dumping their retiree drug benefit programs on the then-new Medicare Part D, becomes taxable under Obamacare. Corporations are now being reminded of the harsh truth: What Big Government giveth, Big Government taketh away, too.
According to the American Spectator, top White House advisers reacted with angry phone calls to the corporations in question. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., issued harassing document requests and demanded that the chief executive officers appear before his committee next month to answer for their sins. These corporations, which legally owe an honest reckoning to their shareholders, are only doing their duty by restating projections. By contrast, Waxman and many of his fellow Democratic leaders in Congress have used every government accounting and budget gimmick at their disposal to deceive Americans for the last year about the true costs of Obamacare. These Washington politicians have no business lecturing CEOs on honesty in accounting.
During the Bush years, many left-liberals were fond of the phrase, “chickens coming home to roost.”
Looks like I’ve just turned that phrase into a meta-ironic punch line.
Perhaps it’s time once again for me to dust off Billy Jack and Ward Churchill — you know, just for old time’s sake…
“How dare those corporate bastards obey the law without permission?”
And ol’ “Walking Eagle” is sooooo 2007…
I hope hope hope Waxman goes ahead with his hearings.
please please please
The dems aren’t just in freefall now they want to add rocket assist.
Please bring on the hearings. Make the real costs of this disastrous law front and center in the media for days, weeks, and months.
It’s a good thing the idiots claiming to “uphold” our laws don’t even know what laws they pass or what the laws are.
Viva governmente!
This would be a hell of a lot simpler if those greedy corporations would just hand over all their money to the Feds.
I’m sure Uncle Sam will give you your allowance each week, so long as all your chores are done. And by chores, I mean campaign donations.
Bring on the damn hearings. I want to see some businessmen with balls show up these craven hypocrites we have as “leaders”… and then watch Congressman Waxman demand the TV cameras be removed from the chamber.
It’s cool to see this place really hopping. Lots of posts, lots of active threads, good deal.
“chickens coming home to roost.” Maybe Waxman can invite Rev. Wright to address the honesty and ethical segments of any question that Waxman may have problems with.
Wish one of them would show up and tell Waxman to go pound sand. (Kinda like Tony Stark in the trailers for Iron Man 2.)
President Chicxulub is experiencing CFIT.
Off topic (just partially), this may be a parody but it is funny.
If real it is a good argument for private and parochial schools. And of course for not allowing criminals to immigrate into the country (which of course is the underlying theme of the play, the dark side of the American Dream).
H/T to Glenn Reynolds for finding this nugget of fun.
Considering that these corporations are following the law, and conforming to mandated accounting standards, as well as their ethical duty to report to their shareholders, they should tell Waxman, Stupak et al to get stuffed, they’ve got better uses of their time than to be grilled before a committee for telling the truth!
Or maybe, if they choose to appear and testify, every one of them should include in their opening statements, exactly how many jobs they are now unable to fund due to this bite into their revenues…
Ana Marie Cox, as Mary Magdaline, witnesses the political rebirth of her god… He is risen!
I think we’re missing the negative side of these actions. The next step for Obama/Congress is to show how the EVIL corporations are not letting children get their healthcare. Why does AT&T hate children? I mean, the goverment *tried* to help those poor poor children, but Caterpillar, the Republicans, and well, let’s be honest, Hitler, are conspiring to watch these children die in the streets.
If Caterpillar, AT&T, and Hitler are working together, well then maybe it’s just time that some of these companies be nationalised. For the children, for our future.
Billy Jack, Ward Churchill…
Seems Rahm “the Chicago Way” Emmanuel’s aluminum baseball bat could contribute somehow, IYKWIMAITYD.
Auditioning for bit parts:
The dead-sister’s dentures that Louise Slaughter rhapsodized about
Obama’s Blackberry, which sends him a daily devotional
The smiley face with the Hitler ‘stache on the cover of Liberal Fascism
Hillary’s reset button
Glenn Beck’s chalkboard
Free-range tonsils and feet, carelessly lopped off by greedy doctors
Mitt Romney’s perfect hair
Sarah Palin’s moose heads
Larry King’s suspenders
Chris Matthews’s leg tingle
Keef Olberman’s high dudgeon
The ironic ennui under erasure from the Unhappy Hipsters site
The debunked-but-it-doesn’t-know-it hockey stick graph
It’s a regular cattle-call out there.
…
Congress should have to follow Sarbanes-Oxley.
I can’t wait for Waxman to pontificate at the hearings, “We designed this bill to save businesses up to $3,000 in premiums per employee, why haven’t you accounted for that?”
And the CEO answers, “Because Generally Accepted Accounting Principles do not allow us to include utterly baseless bullshit in our financial statements.”
‘Those whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.’
Mad, as in insane…
See: The entire Democrat party leadership steering the ship of state right off a cliff with deranged smiled plastered on their faces so the state controlled media to get the shot.
For a mangled metaphor I think it cleanly captures this particular moment in American history.
ef’n syntax…
Hold on guys, Waxman just called another hearing. Seems physicists are going to be asked to explain why they’ve set the acceleration from gravity at 10m/s/s, causing billions in health care costs from falls.
It went up .2 m/s? Who knew?
“unexpectedly”
Heh.
mojo, I blame Bush…
I would really rather see Waxman and his fellow pinheads sign affidavits of their economic predictions, then switch seats and defend their bullshit to the grilling of these CEOs. Under oath.
It went up .2 m/s? Who knew?
I never figured TallDave for a poet or a jock. But then, on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, either.
B Moe, you hater, you…
Damn right I am.
Loath might be a better word for my feelings about Waxman. Is loath stronger then hate? Whichever is stronger, that is what I want.
Maybe a hateful loathing, Or loathsome hate.
I just really don’t like that motherfucker at all.
How about the CEO’s ask for subpeona power to force members of Congress to testify before their boards and stockholder meetings to explain the wisdom of approving legislation they haven’t read, or how the mandatory application of GAAP is racist because it clearly just wants Obama to fail, or why they should make it out of the room without wearing tar and feathers.
Add another corporation to the growing list:
“Insurer Prudential Financial Inc. said Monday that it will take a $100 million charge in the first quarter in relation to the recent health care overhaul legislation.”
Damn dicentra, that’s a semiotic treasure trove.
My gut on this says its going to be really significant. The corporations have bent over for Obama to avoid his socialist wrath. But now Obama is really coming after what’s important- cash. CEO’s recognize without cash, the company stops running, which results in everybody losing their jobs. Obama doesn’t get that. He is in a bubble and his reality involves bad corporations, “intellectualism” and chicago style deals, which seem to mostly involve corruption and race baiting.
So I say bring on the CEOs. They can afford the best lawyers and best accountants and those folks will run rings around Waxman, Durbin, et al. Because it really is about understanding how the economy works and democrats just do not understand it (or prefer to remain blissfully ignorant). Honestly, if I was a tenured professor who didn’t have to produce anything, I’d probably feel the same way.
Happy?
“I hope hope hope Waxman goes ahead with his hearings.
please please please”
Not yet my impatient friend, not yet. Let’s see it in mid summer when people are waking up to the midterms. THEN we see the Commie power of Waxman,Boxer,Frank,Schumer….Then? when the really warm weather hits? We Tea Partiers hit back hard.
Mr W? Then the gods are pretty pissed at me, ‘cus I’m REALLY angry at what’s going on today…and yesterday…and tomorrow.
Gods won’t destroy me though. The IRS? possibly.
Matt? No, the CEO’s won’t. Well, they WILL? but it will never be reported,never be seen and will NEVER sway the progressives.
IF the LSM were to stop being afraid of being called racist? MAYBE there might be a report or 2, but what are the odds of that?
Give me 7 numbers for Mass Millions. But no money to pay for the ticket…The odds are that low.
Senator Homer Simpson:”I’ll teach you to embarrass me by doing what I told you to do!”
We are so screwed…
The gods of the copybook headings still rule.
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm
That’s always a good read, Mikey NTH. Today, it could be titled ‘TANSTAAFL’.
Neo-neocon cited that poem today too Mikey.
Unfuckingbelievable. They actually knew this before they passed it. From Dennis the Peasant:
Without trying to get into a whole lot of grief here for being a G-dbotherer, has it occurred to anyone else that all of this foolishness — including the Democratic Overtake of the Federal Government — might be some sort of Master Plan to save the U.S. from its own stupidity?
Who was it who said, long ago, that G-d protects “children, fools, and the United States of America”?…
Billy and Ward, together again? Say it ain’t so!
And who was amongst the signors? The C.F.O.s of Caterpillar, Deere & Co. and Verizon.
Maybe they’re pulling a Juan Carlos I: pretending to go along until the trigger is pulled, and then… BLAMMO!
Yes, as a matter of fact, it has. I’ve mused to myself on more than one occasion that Obama could be the Manchurian Candidate of all Manchurian Candidates. He was actually a plant by Ayn Rand many years ago, in an effort to accelerate the inevitable implosion of the nanny-statists. Rather than fight them, give them exactly what they want–John Galt style.
After all is said and done, Obama may actually be the libertarians’ biggest hero. His self-sacrifice (odd, that! ;) in helping to destroy collectivism forever will be celebrated!
But it usually takes a couple of dirty martinis (doubles, with Grey Goose) coursing through my veins to get me on that jag. What’s your poison?
I’ve been citing that poem here and elsewhere for quite a while. Amazing how much of Kipling holds up over time.
You’d think that Rep. Waxman would remember his vote in favor of Sarbanes-Oxley, that necessitated all this in the first place. But I guess he isn’t much on paying attention to all that printy stuff that slides across the ol’ desk.