Posted on 12/14/2014 5:15:04 AM PST by Kaslin
Lying liars lie even about incidental lapses into truth.
In a double insult, economics professor and political hack Jonathan Gruber has now apologized—not to us, to Congress—for boasting about how clever was the opaque legislative process used to dupe us “stupid” voters about the true nature of Obamacare.
Gruber has become the cynosure of all cynical eyes thanks to numerous videos in which he burbles about how dumb we all are for believing Obamacare claims and promises. O-care’s non-taxes were, in fact, taxes, the “savings” it would bring were, in fact, massive new costs, etc.
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” he instructs in one clip. “[C]all it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”
Some voters have indeed been taken in by claims that political magic would make all things medical better, cheaper, faster, stronger, bionic. I can’t exonerate every member of our species from the accusation of “stupidity.” But ideology and wishful thinking are more fundamental explanations of why so many accepted the fairy tales. Many others, vindicating the “sapiens” part of our Latin cognomen, did not.
Admittedly, a slim majority of bozos in Congress did buy into Obamacare. Whether they were incompetent dupes or corrupt dogs, they were all Democrats. Not a single Republican voted for the legislation. But to Gruber, members of Congress seem to be in on the scam. Maybe that’s why he’s apologizing to them and not the public.
Here is the big irony: the stupidly slandered Americans constituted the one demographic too smart to fall for the deceit at the heart of the Affordable Care Act. Poll after poll leading up to Congress passing the ACA demonstrated that most folks opposed it, disbelieving Gruber’s and Obama’s distortions.
Setting the standard for stupid, actually, is Prof. Gruber himself. It was he, after all, who spent an uncomfortable morning before a nasty congressional committee last week, thereby putting his multi-million dollar career as a paid government advisor in jeopardy. Jawboning has its costs.
More consequential to the rest of us, though, is the law Gruber has left behind: the Affordable Care Act. A Politico article on the big-talking MIT professor was headlined with the question: “Will Jonathan Gruber Topple Obamacare?”
Answer: He might.
Slapping the word “stupid” around in place of “American people” will likely only embarrass Gruber and ACA supporters, but Gruber’s comments on how the law deals with federal government subsidies for individuals if their state does not set up a state exchange under Obamacare may prove as illuminating as a thunderbolt.
On film yet again (who’s this guy’s agent?), Gruber insists, “I think what’s important to remember politically about this is that, if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits.”
That very issue is the subject of a legal challenge to Obamacare, King v. Burwell, now in the queue to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The essence of the case posits that the federal government has no authority under the Affordable Care Act to provide subsidies to individuals in states, which have not set up Obamacare exchanges. Only 14 states have set up those exchanges, 36 have not.
Moreover, without the direct taxpayer subsidy enticing individuals to sign up for the healthcare coverage, the whole scheme known as Obamacare falls apart.
Hmmmm. Perhaps this is why last year Gruber called this lawsuit—you guessed it—“stupid.”
Stupid is as stupid says. Over and over again.
Asked point-blank by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) to square his previous comments with the current legality of the Obama Administration giving subsidies to people in 36 states that have not established exchanges, Gruber stammered, “When I made those comments, I believe what I was saying was reflecting uncertainty about the implementation of the federal exchange. I don’t recall exactly what the law says.”
Let’s hope the High Court reads the law as if it were comprised of words with exact meanings and not feelings with ambiguous nebulosity, but one never knows.
Yet, Gruber’s original, partial admissions and his current dishonest retractions certainly confirm what we already know about how political power is gained and gloated over by persons of his type. Now that he has delivered his object lesson, he is free to slither off the public stage.
“...he is free to slither off the public stage...”
Does he get to keep the millions he was paid to foist his deceit on the public?
Do those who conspired with him in his duplicity get a free pass?
Do those whose lives were ruined have any recourse against his and his minion’s treachery?
Does his and his minions’ subversion of the Constitution
get an scrutiny?
Just asking.
IMHO
“Hmmmm. Perhaps this is why last year Gruber called this lawsuit—you guessed it—“stupid.””
And... He’s correct. Dragging him in front of Issa’s House Oversight Committee so to rake him over the coals was a form of verbal masterbation. Self gratifying, but nothing else. And, by the way Gruber was right by calling the American people stupid - at least the Democrat portion. After all, they elected Obama twice, elected a majority in both houses, passesd Obama Care without even reading it (Pelosi; “we have to pass it before we can read it.” How stupid can you get?). Gruber did Anericans a favor by putting the light of day on Obama Care. As far as I’m concerned whatever miley he was paid he should be allowed to keep. He earned it. “Stupid is as stupid does” - America.
Government bottom feeders like this guy should have their address and phone number published...
The founders gave us a LIMITED government for a reason.
Yes a grifter. These socialists are all parasites.
I’m not buying Gruber’s statement.
STUPID is when you are INFORMED of the facts, and you still don’t get it.
In this case, the public was not even ALLOWED to see what was in the bill until after it was made ‘law’.
Now that we can SEE it, we understand what is IN it. We are not stupid.
And this way of doing it doesn't even hint that maybe -- just maybe -- there might be ground under which it may incriminate him.
I don’t think the Supreme Court is going to knock out those subsidies. I think they are going to say that it would be too disruptive.
We need to bring our politcals under control. And the way to do that is with “True” campaign finance controls, of course the politicals will never pass such laws without a revolution . . . But here are my ideas anyway,
1. Only Constitutionally legal citizens of a majority age can donate to a political campaign. This means no corporations, no PACs, no unions, no 38,000 dollar a plate dinners, no trusts and no foreigners.
2. Campaign money can only come from the district represented.
3. Yearly citizen donations limited to a base amount from a base year and adjusted for inflation or deflation so that donors will see what the politicals have done to their money. Say JFK’s election year 1960 and limited to $200 from that year, that would be over $1,550 in todays money.
I’m sure a few more things can be added but remember that simple laws are the best laws, like “You shall not murder”.
“Now that we can SEE it, we understand what is IN it. We are not stupid.”
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Depends on how you define stupid. Some of it is a matter of how long you have been on the Earth, some of it is the will or the lack of will to see reality rather than falling for a storyline. I never thought for one instant that the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could possibly have anything to do with either one. Having passed the age of sixty at that time and having done my best to comprehend reality rather than believe the absurd spewings of leftist politicians, I realized that expecting the government to write a health care bill that would result in anything other than disaster is equivalent to expecting a herd of swine wallowing in a mire to somehow produce fine French pastry. You may as well look behind a horse and expect to find Mrs Smith’s apple pie rather than road apples.
The majority of Americans were NEVER fooled about 0bamcare and its potential impact on health insurance (it was never about healthcare). The only “stupid voters” in this debacle were the dhimmicraps in Congress who passed it in the dark of night, without knowledge of its actual content. They did it because they were assured by their ‘leadership’ that it would lead the way to single-payer, and the total take over of healthcare in the US by the federal gubmint.
The simple fact that these elected fools ignored their constituents is just more evidence that it’s time to clean house. Call for the Article V convention and let’s get to it.
Where were all these videos before? They released them just to rub our faces in it.
Just like PLANNED PARENTHOOD has nothing to do with planning or parenthood.
We're not stupid. We're lazy.
Everyone is so quick to talk about "their rights". Nobody ever mentions their responsibilities.
In order to protect your rights and privileges, we have a responsibility to supervise our public servants. We have a responsibility to keep up with the important issues and communicate with our servants.
We have abdicated our sovereignty by refusing to exercise our responsibilities to hold the government in check. We have let our representatives run wild and they have squandered our national wealth, alienated our allies, and shredded our constitution. We are now being held hostage by our own representatives and trying to blame them for what's happened to us.
The first step in correcting the situation is properly identifying the problem.
Obamacare is doomed to be Grubered into the dustbin of history. Four Justices will approve the subsidies. Five will rule on the plain words of the law and will be greatly offended by the scam and Gruber’s words.
Gruber was only doing what obama wanted him to do. It’s on obama and the RATS that propped it all up.
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education." - Thomas Jefferson
Perhaps, without even knowing it, and completely by accident, this so-called "intellectual" from academia has done his part to "inform the discretion" of "the people themselves" as to what Samuel Adams called "the artifices of false and designing men" who are, today, attempting to undermine and subvert "the liberties of our country, [and] the freedom of our civil Constitution."
Let’s have progressivism slither off stage with him.
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