Henry Waxman: The Witch Hunter of Capitol Hill

Henry Waxman: The Witch Hunter of Capitol Hill
Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Has there ever been a time when 18-term liberal Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman's nostrils weren't flaring indignantly at corporate executives and entrepreneurs? The man wields his gavel over the free market like a Damoclean sword. He throws the weight of his congressional chairmanship around like a sumo wrestler walking across hot stones. For more than 35 years, Waxman has made it his taxpayer-funded business to use the power of government to undermine private business.

No one should be surprised by his latest thuggish efforts to silence companies speaking out about the cost implications and financial burdens of Demcare -- least of all, those companies.

This is the Eliot Ness-wannabe who serves proudly as the left's chief inquisitor. This is the Capitol Hill haranguer who herded tobacco company CEOs in front of the cameras, made them raise their right hands and cackled as he forced them to testify under oath about the evils of their products. Waxman's demagoguery then was so over the top that it prompted Washington Post columnist William Raspberry to write that the "Capitol Hill inquisition masquerading as legislative hearings reminds me of nothing so much as a witch-hunting Joe McCarthy."

Last month, Waxman stacked the deck at the Toyota inquisition hearing with auto industry-bashing Naderites. In 2007, he held court over the Valerie Plame show trial. And in February 2008, he wasted four hours on a nationally televised interrogation of baseball legend Roger Clemens and his trainer. Republicans called Waxman out on his Captain Queeg-ish vendetta against Clemens. The debacle was dubbed a "Roman Circus." After squandering public resources on congressional showboating over steroid use, Waxman himself confessed that he "didn't think it was a hearing that needed to be held."

When he isn't abusing the deliberative process to add to his press-clipping collection and serve up red meat (er, blue meat) for the TV airwaves, he's short-circuiting hearings to ram through political power grabs masquerading as "reform." Waxman pushed massively expensive, complicated cap-and-tax legislation through the House last year by leapfrogging over subcommittee debate. He also staved off Republican efforts to slow down and scrutinize the behemoth bill by hiring a "speed reader" to plow through the 900-page bill during mark-up.

Waxman himself couldn't be bothered to familiarize himself with the trillion-dollar regulatory tyranny stuffed into his own bill. When a GOP colleague on his committee asked him whether he knew a specific provision had been embedded in the proposal with his name on it, Waxman snorted: "You're asking me?"

The indignant interrogator then went on to question the patriotism of anyone who dared ask questions about the climate change tax scheme -- and accused conservatives of "rooting against the country."

Now, Waxman is targeting the heads of Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon and AT&T with "invitations" they can't refuse to testify at an April 21 hearing on their public statements regarding Demcare-caused writedowns. Waxman's 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 don't. If they stay silent, they'll be violating Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure requirements passed by Congress after the Enron scandal. If they talk, they'll be paraded in front of the camera like those poor tobacco heads Waxman waxed more than 15 years ago.

Who's 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, he'll be holding an inquisition-a-thon a day.

And that would suit the Witch Hunter of Capitol Hill just fine. If he isn't meddling, he isn't working. And if he isn't using his powers to bully, bulldoze or bankrupt his enemies, he is failing the gods of progressivism.
___________________________________________________

To read another article by Michelle Malkin, click here.

___________________________________________________
No Speech for You
David Harsanyi
Friday, April 02, 2010

So Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is demanding that citizens justify their political speech under oath. Nervous Nellies doubtlessly will characterize this as an "overreach." Crybabies will grouse about the "chilling" effect or the "muzzling" of dissent.

Yet in these heady days of change, it's all about context. In this case, you'll be relieved to know, we're talking about CEOs. These people take home considerably more pay than I do. Accordingly, they deserve to sit through hours of absurd inquires from sanctimonious politicians as a matter of karmic justice.

What they don't deserve is free speech. The president ably expounded on the matter in the State of the Union address: Corporations should not be entitled to the same constitutional protections as the rest of us.

With this in mind, it should surprise no one that Waxman has requested the "personal testimony" of a few CEOs, who have reported billions of dollars in negative impact to their businesses -- per Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure requirements -- because of the passage of health care reform.

In the letter, Waxman asserts, "The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern." And everyone knows that it is impossible for legislation to have unintended consequences.

Whom are you going to believe, numbers or Joe Biden?

This cabal of profiteering is headed up by AT&T ($1 billion first-quarter charge), Boeing ($150 million), John Deere ($150 million), Caterpillar ($100 million), 3M, AK Steel, Verizon, Prudential, the lodging industry ... and so forth and so on, until we hit on every single company affected by the elimination of a tax break on retiree drug benefits. It likely will cost employees and thus consumers an estimated $14 billion -- not counting the new Medicare costs.

Boy, if only these corporations had something akin to a Congressional Budget Office. Bean counters could conceal costly programs on separate balance sheets and add bogus cost-saving measures to the ones they present to shareholders.

Then again, what works for Congress amounts to a prison term out in the corporate world. So for now, businesses rely on Arabic numerals (lest we need another reason to question their patriotism) and arithmetic (in this case, lots of subtraction).

Some may wonder whether Waxman has any lawful grounds to bully anyone into accepting his view of Obamacare. Even if corporations, typically snuggling up to Washington for crony capitalistic favors, had joined in a twisted political conspiracy to make Barack Obama's legislative masterpiece look as terrible as it is ... so what? Since when is making a law look bad a criminal act?

The ironic part of Waxman's abuse of power is that he also demands that CEOs show up with "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."

Would it not be helpful for Congress to first provide taxpayers with any and all documents -- including e-mail messages sent to or prepared or reviewed by elected officials -- regarding this historic health care reform bill?

Maybe if Congress applied a fraction of the transparency it demands from corporate America to its own dealings, it wouldn't have to rely on pompous bullies like Waxman to stifle free speech.