Rick Crawford today called on Speaker Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats to cease employing abusive intimidation tactics against American companies that are required by law to report adverse financial conditions to pension funds, mutual funds, individual stockholders, and other investors that own company shares.

“At Speaker Pelosi’s direction, House Democratic committee chairmen are lining up public interrogation sessions for some of our nation’s leading job creators, including John Deere, Caterpillar, AT&T, and Verizon Communications,” said Crawford.  “Instead of attacking the great American companies who provide tens of thousands of jobs, Congress should be taking a hard look at the true costs of the new healthcare entitlement program.”

Friday House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak wrote to the heads of John Deere, Caterpillar, AT&T, and Verizon Communications requesting that the companies testify in sworn statements before Congress.  The letters request specific information about accounting methods, emails among senior company officials, and comes with the implicit threat that subpoenas would be issued for companies that refuse to comply with the Congressional request.  The information is due by April 9, 2010, and the hearings are set for April 21, 2010.

Waxman’s call for hearings came after Speaker Pelosi told Democrats to go on the “offensive” in defending and calming public doubts about the new entitlement program.

“This liberal Congress seems to be friendlier toward prisoners at Guantanamo than American job creators,” concluded Crawford.  “Especially during an once-in-a-lifetime economic recession, we should be seeking to work with businesses, not trying to cripple and intimidate them.  I believe that we would have been much better served if Congrress would have focused on creating jobs and addressing the national fiscal crisis rather than spending money we do not have on a new entitlement program for 32 million people that will only put government between us and our doctors.”