The corporate damage rolls in, and Democrats are shocked!

WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE, 3/27/2010 (Hat tip: Carolyn Webb), The ObamaCare Writedowns - It's been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses. ∴ This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or "political." Read more at WSJ...

UPDATE: WASHINGTON EXAMINER, 3/30/2010 by Byron York: As President Obama claims that the new health care law is just a 'first step'... [...] "Prudential [Financial] joins AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, 3M, Valero Energy, and AK Steel in announcing writedowns due to anticipated higher health care costs. The announcements, made to comply with a Securities and Exchange Commission deadline, have angered Democrats on Capitol Hill, who insist that “independent analyses” say the companies’ costs should be lower, not higher, under the Democratic plan. House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman has ordered the CEO’s of several of the companies to testify before the panel on April 21, as well as produce internal company documents related to health care cost calculations — a move that House Minority Leader John Boehner calls pure intimidation." Read more at the Examiner...