The bloodsucking Dem despotic government is threatening retribution to businesses for filing reports required by law.
Maxed out mama explains:
As readers may or may not know, publicly traded companies are required to be audited and to file a number of disclosures with the SEC. These disclosures include quarterly and yearly financials, and 8-Ks, which are disclosures of anything material affecting the company such as management changes, debt or profits. The theory behind that is that anything the management knows it must disclose to the public.
Now it is standard practice when filing an SEC statement to also release a press statement, because the last thing any company wants is for some enterprising reporter to go looking through the SEC filings and start writing articles with his or her interpretation of them. No, the company wants to control the narrative as far as it is possible and legal.
Okay, so last week a bunch of companies made "statements" regarding the health care legislation that passed. They were required by law to recognize accounting effects and file an 8-K as soon as they knew of the effects. They did so.
Here's the gestapo "invite":
The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing on April 21, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. in Room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building to examine the impact of the new law on AT&T and other large employers. We request your personal testimony at this hearing.
To assist the Committee with its preparation for the hearing, we request that you provide the following documents from January 1,2009, through the present: (1) any analyses related to the projected impact of health care reform on AT&T; and (2) any documents, including e-mail messages, sent to or prepared or reviewed by senior company officials related to the projected impact of health care reform on AT&T. We also request an explanation of the accounting methods used by AT&T since 2003 to estimate the financial impact on your company of the 28% subsidy for retiree drug coverage and its deductibility or nondeductibility, including the accounting methods used in preparing the cost impact statement released by AT&T this week.
We ask that you provide the requested information by April 9, 2010. For purposes of this request, the term "senior company officials" includes all company officials at the level of Vice President and above for the company or any subsidiary. Attachments to this letter provide additional information about responding to Committee document requests and testifying before the Committee. If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact Meredith Fuchs with the Committee staff at (202) 226-2424. ~a.~
Henry A. Waxman
Democrat Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce,, infinitely more beautiful on the outside than the inside
Democrats threaten companies hit hard by health care bill Byron York, Washington Examiner
Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has summoned some of the nation's top executives to Capitol Hill to defend their assessment that the new national health care reform law will cost their companies hundreds of millions of dollars in health insurance expenses. Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances -- a move one committee Republican describes as "an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents of the Democrats' flawed health care reform legislation."
On Thursday and Friday, the companies -- so far, they include AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, Valero Energy, AK Steel and 3M -- said a tax provision in the new health care law will make it far more expensive to provide prescription drug coverage to their retired employees. Now, both retirees and current employees of those companies are wondering whether the new law could mean reduced or canceled benefits for them in the future.
The news is an embarrassment for Democrats. As President Obama and congressional leaders tout the purported benefits of the new health care law, some of the nation's biggest companies are saying it will mean higher costs and fewer benefits -- not exactly what Democrats want to hear in the days after their historic victory.
So 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.
