East Village Afternoon

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If you thought you were shocked before by Republican hypocrisy, the greed of big business and the ignorance of the Tea-Baggers, wait til you read this.

The Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post report that AT&T Inc. will take a $1 billion non-cash accounting charge in the first quarter because of the health care overhaul.
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AT&T said Friday that the charge reflects changes to how Medicare subsidies are taxed. Companies say the health care overhaul will require them to start paying taxes next year on a subsidy they receive for retiree drug coverage. Under the 2003 Medicare prescription drug program, companies that provide prescription drug benefits for retirees have been able to receive subsidies covering 28 percent of eligible costs. But they could deduct the entire amount they spent on these drug benefits – including the subsidies – from their taxable income.
The new law allows companies to only deduct the 72 percent they spent.

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AT&T also said Friday that it is looking into changing the health care benefits it offers because of the new law. Analysts say retirees could lose the prescription drug coverage provided by their former employers as a result of the overhaul.

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Okay, we honestly don't understand what the $1 billion non-cash accounting charge is, and who will pay it, but it doesn't take a rocket science to figure out that it's money that AT&T will be collecting from someone else, in other words, it won't be coming out of their own pockets.

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So let's get this straight. The Republicans; their mentally-challenged, bastard, Tea-Bagger stepchildren; and Big Business in America hate the welfare state. The idea of paying for someone else's health care has them beside themselves with anger. But Big Business doesn't have a problem with taking government money to pay for their own retirees' health care costs. In other words, they hate welfare for the individual, but they can't get enough of corporate welfare, in fact they're addicted to it. And the addiction is so strong that when they're forced off of it, they still refuse to pay their own way; they simply look for new deep pockets where they might be able to find some more free money.

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In even more simple language, the American government, i.e., we, the people, are giving AT&T money to pay for their own employees' prescription drugs. And what's more, Bush and Cheney allowed them to deduct 100% of whatever money they spent on their retirees' prescription drugs, but remember that 28% of that 100% was given to them in the form of a government subsidy, which means they weren't even spending their own money, they were spending our money to pay their own costs. But Pres. Obama's health care reform ends the tax deduction for the 28% subsidy. Thus AT&T is scrambling to find a new way to make up for the money lost when they no longer get that tax deduction, (on money that wasn't even theirs in the first place).

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So the next time you hear Republicans or ignoramus Tea-Baggers scream about "welfare", ask them why they're not just as outraged about corporate welfare. In other words, we're all paying for others' health care, the only difference between the Democrats and Republicans is that the Democrats are upfront about it, while the Republicans hide the fact that we're paying for others' health care through government subsidies and tax breaks to corporations, things of which the common American are normally never aware.