'Stupidity' consultant agrees to testify (Gruber)

The Hill ^ | November 25, 2015 | Sarah Ferris

[maggief]

Jonathan Gruber, the former ObamaCare adviser in hot water for his comments about the “stupidity of the American voter,” has agreed to testify at a House panel next month, setting up a healthcare showdown in what could be the final week of this Congress.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will also hear from Obama administration official Marilyn Tavenner, who is under fire this week for using inflated enrollment figures for the healthcare law.

“Both Mr. Gruber and Administrator Tavenner have agreed to testify,” committee spokeswoman Caitlin Carroll told The Hill.

Both figures have played a role in major political headaches for the Obama administration, which is facing new attacks about “repeated transparency failures and outright deceptions” by committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will be grilled for a number of speeches he has given since 2010 that blame the Obama administration for intentionally obscuring details of the healthcare law in order to assure its passage.

Tavenner, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has taken flak after an investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee revealed last week that ObamaCare enrollment figures had been inflated by nearly 400,000 people.

The administration has been quick to acknowledge that the misreported enrollment count was a mistake, and have defended Tavenner. But hardly any Democrats have stood beside Gruber.

Democrats on the committee are “still considering different options for a minority witness,” according to a Democratic staffer.

The hearing, which takes place Dec. 9, will be one of the last for Issa, who has been one of the most vocal critics of the healthcare law.

“The American people deserve honesty, transparency and respect from those who forced the federal government into their healthcare. I expect Mr. Gruber and Administrator Tavenner to testify publicly next month about the arrogance and deceptions surrounding the passage and implementation of ObamaCare,” Issa wrote in a statement last week when he announced the hearing.

[Old Sarge]

Jonathan Gruber, the former ObamaCare adviser in hot water for his comments about the “stupidity of the American voter,” has agreed to testify at a House panel lie under oath at a political kabuki theater next month

There, edited to reflect reality.

[wayoverontheright]

It is already established fact that the legislation was deceptively promoted. And Gruber has stated that Obama was in the room when some of the lies were being hatched.

Will Gruber finger Obama?

I doubt it. My bet is he takes the fifth.

No problem, there’s enough on the record to pursue this legally. Don’t we all have standing now?

[Liz]

Actually, the payouts are only what they allow us to know...paltry sums compared to the billions hidden in Obamacare.

Even more disturbing is the massive, multi-billion-dollar slush fund the self-serving Gruber hid from "stupid" Americans in Obamacare. Gruber made dam sure it was kept hidden from us stupid taxpayers.

=========================================

The Untraceable $8 Billion ObamaCare PR Budget---truly govt fraud at its finest. Egged on by Pelosi, Democrats slavishly voted for Obamacare by an historic straignt-party line vote. But not one Democrat told Americans about Obamacare's Section 4002---which mandates an $8B untraceable fund to "promote" Obamacare (apparently b/c Boobamba had so little confidence in his signature legislation).

THE PAYOFF--WHO GETS THE MONEY? In 2010 Taxpayers are extorted $500 million, in 2011, $750 million, 2012, $1 billion, 2013, $1.25 billion, 2014, $1.5 billion, and, in 2015 and on, $2 billion

<><> Where is all that money going?

<><> Was cashing-in the incentive in getting the thing passed.

==================================================

Taxpayers demand to know ---- why Gruber/Obama/Pelosi didnt reveal that Obamacare contains a multi-billion dollar slush fund? Exactly who is cashing in?

The sound of West Wing wire-transfers to offshore banks is almost palpable.

[Steven Tyler]

The 2015 Senate have all the tapes needed to prosecute and convict Gruber.
The question is how many co-conspirators will Congress root out over the next few weeks/months.

America will resemble Chicago, so many Politicos and Bureaucrats will hopefully end up in jail.

Then, we can bring the hammer down on 0bama

[Joe 6-pack]

Gruber should avoid Ft. Marcy Park until he has a chance to plead the Fifth...I’m not sure he will though. He’s a smug elitist and I’m guessing is still firmly convinced he is in the right. He probably welcomes the opportunity to educate congress. Might even distribute his little coloring book to each member as advance material.

[MulberryDraw]

The Obama administration is in decline. Democrats/Obama took a big hit in the last election. Liars will likely lie but it might not be to protect Obama.

[ReaganGeneration2]

Another opportunity for a Northeast elitist weasel-worder to finagle around Issa and the rest of Congress.

[V_TWIN]

For me it’s all about getting him in front of congress, asking the questions and putting him in the public eye...having said that, I’m sure it’ll be a media blackout from the usual suspects.

[MrEdd]

If he thinks ratting the Democrats out will preserve more of the payouts he got he will do that.

This guy is all about the money.

Shekels Gruber.

[nathanbedford]

The Republican leadership is making yet another error in presenting these hearings involving Dr. Gruber.

It is a mistake to believe that the public will be treated to a series of humiliating questions and stumbling answers about the alleged stupidity of the American people, rather there will be a facile apology by the professor who is more intelligent and more glib than any member of the committee leaving the committee members either to overreach and berate a contrite and humiliated individual one after the other on television or move away and go to a debate about Obamacare.

The problem is, the Republicans have already won the issue of Dr. Gruber's arrogance and have effectively extrapolated that arrogance onto Obamacare and even onto the whole of the Obama administration. There is virtually nothing to be gained relitigating this victory and much will be put at risk.

There is nothing to be gained by a series of congressman who are poorly briefed debating the man who is the architect of the law and who has lived it for years. He has every statistic at his fingertips while the congressman have only a talking point. They will lose this debate-the relative merits or demerits of Obamacare make no difference. He will appear authoritative, knowledgeable, and he will simply run circles around Republican inquisitors.

The congressman are not prepared capable or willing willing to act coherently as united front. Instead, each congressman will play to the camera and the whole affair will end up only annoying viewers. This is no opportunity to expose the arrogance of Gruber and Obama, this will be exploited by backbench Congressman to have their 15 min. of fame. If it were otherwise they would donate their 15 min. in favor of a professional litigator who would question the witness according to a plan. While each Republican is grooming for the cameras, the Democrats will appear in between and undo any good the last Republican questioner might inadvertently have done.

Finally, Chairman Darrell Isis has a lamentable record of just falling short.

The upside has already been obtained, there is only downside. The hearings will at best come off as a draw on the substantive issue involved, the merits of Obamacare. Quit while you are ahead.

[randita]

How could anything he says be taken seriously?

I expect him to pretend to be contrite. He’ll continue his excuses that what he said were “speak-os”, crafted to make points to the audiences he was addressing. He didn’t mean them literally, blah...blah.

Then he’ll spout all the nonsense about how wonderful Grubamacare is, how many people love it, and how many people are being saved because they now can afford health insurance.

I hope they don’t focus on his comments about voter stupidity, but instead hit him with substance: e.g., taxes vs. mandates; federal subsidies for state exchanges or for all; Cadillac tax and so on; CBO cost scoring, and so on.

He’ll be weasely, but in his pompous arrogance. His main goal is to not provide fodder for the upcoming SCOTUS challenges.

[Travis McGee]

[Rebelbase]

Indeed. Brietbarted could be his future.

[PGalt]

A well paid architect ($chicklgruber) for National $ocialists (forced) Totalitariancare is going before CONgre$$ with a committee headed by I$$A?

WILL the not so “stupid Americans” in CONgre$$ who voted against ACA do anything about the devious deceiver? WILL the “stupid Americans” in CONgre$$ who were bamboozled by the tricky totalitarian to vote for ACA express outrage and want his head on a platter?

/sarc

BIG GOVERNMENT IS CRONY SOCIALISM

http://www.usdebtclock.org

Socialism Is Legal Plunder

You would use the law to oppose socialism? But it is upon the law that socialism itself relies. Socialists desire to practice legal plunder, not illegal plunder. Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism? For when plunder is abetted by the law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for help.

/Bastiat

See something, say something…

—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

[Caipirabob]

I wonder how much standing each American has for being defrauded by this guy? Can you say 300 million claimant class action lawsuit? I knew you could... ; )

[M. Thatcher]

the professor who is more intelligent and more glib than any member of the committee

Trey Gowdy is on the Oversight committee.

[nathanbedford]

And I am sure there are other intelligent Republicans besides Trey Gowdy on the committee as well but my point stands, most of those Republicans are not motivated to present a coherent case as a prosecutor would but to advance their own careers.

[PoloSec]

It is exactly as you stated so very well, I’ve watched most of the hearings, they were so predictable, a circus dog and pony show performed in the midst of smoke and mirrors.

You can watch these things if you expect to only be entertained, but if you have expectations of a serious pursuit of justice your frustration level will quickly climb to blood boiling dangerous.

What is most frustrating is the questions they don’t ask, I’ll be thinking okay maybe they are building up to something trapping them in their own words, ultimately nothing happens it just ends with all participants smiling, backslapping and shaking hands...Great Show Everybody!

[Spok]

Only lefties have to ‘agree to testify’; they’re immune to subpoena’s.