Congressional Liars Caught in the Act, Part II

And now we take you to the show trial that never was...

You may recall that, after Pelosi-care was passed, Caterpillar, AT&T, and a number of other major American corporations took immediate, gigantic writedowns against their current income as a result of certain of the bill's provisions. Always quick to demagogue, the 'Rats--led by the despicable Marxist Henry Waxman and the gutless soon-to-be-former-Congressman from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Bart Stupak--decided to demand an appearance by the CEOs of these and other companies to explain their obviously phony provocations. But there was a problem.

Again citing Power Line, which is dead on this week, let Scott Johnson explain this for you:

...when Caterpillar and the other companies took the charges against earnings, the White House suggested that companies were exaggerating the effects of the tax change. Obama administration Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke dutifully peddled the administration line, asserting that the companies were being "premature and irresponsible" in taking the chargeoffs.


Reps. Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak opened an investigation and demanded that four companies -- AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere and Verizon -- supply documents analyzing the "impact of health care reform," together with an explanation of their accounting methods. The Democrats apparently thought that they could eliminate a corporate tax deduction for the purpose of raising government revenue without affecting corporate earnings. That's why deep thinkers like Waxman and Stupak are paid the big bucks by taxpayers.


Waxman and Stupak even planned to produce a bit of political theater, scheduling a hearing on the chargeoffs at which the companies' executives were to testify. The production was canceled when Waxman was apprised of the obvious consequences of the bill he and his Democratic buddies had just voted for. 

What consequences? The fact that, according to currently acceptable accounting procedures, Caterpillar, AT&T, and other companies were, in fact, REQUIRED to take IMMEDIATE WRITEDOWNS. In other words, Waxman, et. al., were so ignorant of this provision of their bill, which they obviously never read or understood, that they were fully prepared to conduct a show trial which would, in fact, end up with THEM, not the corporate CEOs, looking like the asses that they were and are. They were saved from their stupidity by their staffers. (That's not uncommon in Washington, BTW.)

If nothing else, this exposes not only the deep and abiding ignorance of those in Congress who purport to being our betters. It also shows their arrogant overconfidence, prepared as they were to launch a show trial to embarrass a batch of CEOs--who have better things to do--without knowing the fact that they themselves had established in the legislation.

Both the incidents I've just commented upon are ample evidence of two things:

1. Congressional Democrats are dominated by Marxists for whom the truth is not objective. It is what the Party declares it to be.
2. The first instinct of a Congressional Democrat when confronted with opposition is always to smear an opponent first rather than argue a point, knowing in all probability that he or she will lose in a debate based on fact.

Just when you think these people can't sink any lower, they figure out a way to do so.