Jonathan Gruber: Obama personally asked me to help disguise unhelpful Obamacare facts

Hotair ^ | 11/17/2014 | Guy Benson

[SeekAndFind]

That’s not quite his verbatim quote, but it’s pretty darn close:

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

“The problem is it’s a political nightmare, and people say ‘no, you can’t tax my benefits’…so what we did a lot in that room was think a lot about well how could we make this work? … And [Obama] is really a realistic guy. He was like, ‘look, I can’t just do this.’ He said ‘it’s just not going to happen politically. The bill will not pass. How do we manage to get there through phase-ins and other things?’ And we talked about it. He was just very interested in that topic.”

And why was Obama so keen on obscuring the nature of his signature law’s taxes? Perhaps because he’d just recently spent months relentlessly hammering John McCain over a proposal to tax health benefits “for the first time.” So he needed MacGruber to swoop in and help craft a strategy of evasion and deflection. Noah mentioned over the weekend that in his response to Grubergate, Obama insisted that he’d never misled the public on Obamacare (which virtually nobody really buys at this point, and for good reason) and disavowed Gruber’s seemingly endless damning comments. One formulation that stuck out to me was his assertion that Gruber “was never on our staff.” This is exceedingly weak spin. The video above contains evidence that the president was personally huddling with Gruber on the Obamacare sales pitch, charging him with fashioning accounting tricks that might provide a politically-necessary fig leaf — which Paul Ryan dismantled at the pre-passage “health care summit.” It’s impossible for the White House to just divorce itself from this guy. He was very much their guy. Not only did they furnish Gruber with $400,000 for his services, they made him a leading point person for “drafting the specifics” of the law with Congress. Via the New York Times:

Along with these credentials, Mr. Gruber’s position as an adviser to the influential Congressional Budget Office also left him perfectly positioned to advise the White House on health reform. “The most important arbiter of everything was the C.B.O.,” said Neera Tanden, who was a senior adviser for health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services. The C.B.O.’s assessment of a bill’s efficacy and costs strongly influences political debate, but the office does not publicly reveal how it calculates those numbers. “We knew the numbers he gave us would be close to where the C.B.O. was likely to come out,” Ms. Tanden said. She was right. After Mr. Gruber helped the administration put together the basic principles of the proposal, the White House lent him to Capitol Hill to help Congressional staff members draft the specifics of the legislation.

That 2012 profile also quotes Gruber cheerfully describing himself as a “card-carrying Democrat” who routinely holds election night “victory parties” with friends. (How did this year’s celebration go, I wonder?) Obama can try to pull a Pelosi with Gruber. Good luck with that. Alternatively, he can keep lying about not having lied, but only the hardest-core of partisans will believe him. Even Obamacare supporters like Ron Fournier are throwing in the towel, conceding that the law was constructed on a “foundation of lies.” Indeed.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Impeachment.

[1010RD]

If they lie, then they’ve already lost. Tell the American people the truth. Be transparent and show them how you’ll get there. Conservative populism is the answer. See Mike Lee, Scott Walker, et al.

[DoughtyOne]

Goober and Gruber..., what a team!


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...this is a general all-purpose message, and should not be seen as targeting any individual I am responding to...

[ELS]

re: American voters passing/wanting Obamacare

As I recall, the polls always showed the people didn't want Obamacare (still don't) and Obama couldn't get enough Democrats in Congress to vote for it, hence the arm twisting and deal making that were necessary to pass the bill.

[lee martell]

Is that cross eyed professor still flappin his yap?
Careful, pardner, or the DEMS will shut it for you.
You’ve been stepping on a lot of toes while doing your little victory dance.

[Nachum]

The list, Ping

Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list

http://www.nachumlist.com/

[MeshugeMikey]

Id suggest that those who can main the battle stations because when barry goes off the hook hes going off in a BIG WAY!!

<>

[lee martell]

On the Sixth Tape of Gruber-Gate, my Blabber-Mouth sent to me, .........a Trunk full of Torn up Receipts!....On the Seventh Tape of Gruber-Gate..

[baddog 219]

[Beagle8U]

O’bastard paid Gruber to make this campaign ad in 2012!...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxZK0spa1yI#t=0m14s

[BunnySlippers]

Well, well, well ...

[Political Junkie Too]

What would happen to a company that advertised a product that it said would save you $2,500/year, you buy it, and then it actually ends up costing you $5,000/year and you can't get parts for it?

-PJ

[Christie at the beach]

In my view, I think this the link (smoking gun), to prove that Obama willingly plotted to defraud the American people through a policy that affected millions of American citizens individually. To me it’s conspiracy, to commit fraud. They do think the people are stupid but isn’t that easy to pull off when you basically have a we know better than you do mentally, over the population. The progressives love controlling thought and expression, don’t they. And, we are not even including Obama’s denials that he knows much of Gruber or that Gruber was paid money by this administration.

[Beagle8U]

Add this one to your list, Obama paid Gruber for this one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxZK0spa1yI#t=0m14s

[sr4402]

May Gruber be unable to control himself on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). May he not be able to dodge or obfuscate it in any way. May he have to speak the truth again and again till the Progressive/Liberal/Democrats and all who voted for it, repent of allowing this abomination.

Amen

[MrB]

The biggest frustration of fighting these leftist fascists is that they always lie about their agenda,

and that people not only believe them,
but WANT to believe them.

[TexasCajun]

[ScottinVA]

The Obamacare scam should be subject to RICO law. Every single player in that mess should be forced to testify under oath.

[Kay]

Thanks for posting. Helpful.

[The Great RJ]

If we had a blood thirsty media like we did with Nixon, Obama would be hounded out of office.