Waxman cancels embarrassing hearing

Ha. Hoisted on his own petard. [Link]

Waxman had called the hearing in reaction to public statements by several companies -- including Verizon, AT&T, and John Deere, among others -- that Obamacare would cost them hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars because it laid a new tax on their retiree health benefit payments.

Ever since the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit, the payments had been subsidized, tax-free, as a way of preventing these companies from dropping enrollees onto the Medicare rolls, where they would cost the government far more. When Obamacare changed the tax rules, it was quite clear that this would result in huge losses, but President Obama and Democrats had failed to heed warnings to this effect in the run up to Obamacare's passage last month.

The CEOs, required by law to be honest about earnings projections, re-stated their bottom lines in reaction to Obamacare's passage, earning the ire of Waxman and other Democrats.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Waxman-cancels-health-care-CEO-hearing-90853384.html#ixzz0l8LbxS00