Shoot the Messenger

The day after ObamaCare passed, big corporations started reporting the impact on their balance sheets or, if you prefer, their profits.

And day after that Democratic committee chairmen announced that the CEOs of the big corporations would be hauled up before Congress to do some 'splaining. Naturally, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) was first out of the gate.

It really does make the point better than any conservative blow-hard or politician.

Government is force. Politics is power.

How dare, how dare the big corporations have the nerve to announce that Obamacare is going to cost them, big time.

Of course there's a Catch 22 involved. The CEOs are criminally liable if they don't immediately report material information like ObamaCare. But the big bullies in Congress will still harass them for messing with their narrative.

Naturally, Congress isn't content merely to bully the CEOs in prime time. Writes Byron York:

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."

And the CEOs can't fight back because Congress regulates them. A big corporation just can't afford to anger the powerful folks in Congress.

Yet there are people who worry about corporate power. We can't have corporations swinging big bucks around to influence elections, they opine.

To which I always reply: who is giving money to whom? Who is bullying whom? Who is doing the cringing? Who is collecting money to be spent by others on buying votes.

The myth of the monster corporations, endlessly retailed by our lefty friends, is the biggest crock since Marx and his labor theory of value. Corporations do not bestride the world like colossi. They are cringing babies, currying favor with political bullies, and wheedling for subsidies and handouts.

And politicians love it. They can bully the corporations when they feel like it. They can hit them up for contributions. They can ride in their executive jets. They can milk them for tax money. And they can fool the voters into believing that, all along, they are fighting for the people against the powerful.

What's not to like, if you are a politician?

What's not to like is that, every now and again, the corporations blind-side you with the facts on what the politicians are doing to the economy.

But not to worry. Just haul the corporations up to a committee meeting and tell them they are rip-off artists. The mainstream media will report your abuse of power as a noble act of political courage.