Posted on 11/10/2014 9:31:37 AM PST by Kaslin
I have little doubt some of them will be.
Article from the PlainDealer in July, 2014.
http://www.cleveland.com/obrien/index.ssf/2014/07/obamacare_architect_caught_in.html
Obamacare architect caught in web of contradictions on subsidies: Kevin O’Brien
Gruber spent a couple of years barnstorming the country warning states that they had to set up their own exchanges, and that failure to do so would cut their residents out of the subsidy pool. In a 2012 speech, the advice came out as equal measures promise and threat: (2012)
“But there was never any intention to literally withhold money, to withhold tax credits, from the states that didn’t take that step. That’s clear in the intent of the law and if you talk to anybody who worked on the law. My subsequent statement was just a speak-o — you know, like a typo.” (interview with new republic, 2014)
( my thought: Another paid liar and tap dancer by the left the good Prof Gruber.)
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This is how liberal elites feel... watch HBO’s Bill Maher for five minutes and you’ll see the same smug superior attitude. These folks are assh*les...
Jonathan Gruber uses the words and attitudes of every flimflam man who has taken a mark and it proud of it.
Every country in the world run by 'liberal elites' is a hellhole - and this type of arrogant bastard is the reason why...
Gruber first met Obama in 2006. (typical libspeak propping Barry up as so intellectual)
So were you ever in a room with Obama?
Yes, twice.
Tell me. Take me there.
So the first time was in, I don’t know exactly. You know, if I knew at the time how important it would be, I would have written down the date. It is like late 2006 maybe. It was right before he announced he was running. So maybe it was earlier than that, maybe spring 2006, right before he — when people sort of knew he was thinking about it but he hadn’t announced yet. I went down, basically did a tutorial for him on what we had done in Massachusetts and how it would work and basically thinking about expanding it to the national stage.
Where were you? Where was it?
This was in his Senate offices.
And what was he like then?
He was very interested. It was really just an information session. He was really interested in learning. He clearly was not interested in little incremental things. He wanted to be bold. That was clear. He said, “Look, I want to do big changes.” He was really interested in what we had done in Massachusetts. The evidence wasn’t in yet by the time I was meeting with him, but he was interested in what we had done.
So, OK. You have been in a room with this cool idea, with Mitt Romney at one time and Barack Obama at another time. You, of all the people I’ve talked to in the last week, can tell me how — and you had the same — so for me it’s a petri dish you’ve got here, right?
Right.
So what’s the difference between the way each man reacted to your ideas?
Well, I think the contexts are very different. I’ll answer your question, but the caveat is the contexts are very different obviously. With Romney it was a decision meeting, where he kind of knew what he wanted to do. I was coming in, giving him the validation to do that. Obama, it was purely a sort of educational meeting. He was not the expert on health care that, say, Hillary Clinton was. He was there to learn.
So with that in mind, I think that it’s basically what you would think from seeing them. Romney is more formal. Romney was a little bit more — yeah, just a little less casual, a little more formal.
And I just felt a more relaxed around — Obama was a little more relaxed. I think he took a cigarette break halfway through. That is back when he was smoking a lot. He would check his BlackBerry occasionally. He was just kind of casual, interested in learning, very humble. Obama is very humble. Once again, I’m not saying Romney isn’t, but it was very much a situation where, as I said, Romney was very much Romney arguing against his advisers with my playing the role of sort of supporting numbers guy. ...
And Obama was a quick study, had a kind of quicksilver mind about it?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I don’t know how smart Romney is. I mean, in that room he was clearly very — I really appreciated what he was advocating for, whereas Obama was more of an intellectual discourse. And yeah, he was a super-quick study. He really understood it. Very good in terms of — if I was saying something he already knew, he could cut me off without seeming rude, you know, kind of like, “Yeah, I know that,” but not in the kind of “Shut up,” very kind of like: “OK, I know that. Now what about this?” I mean, very much kind of debating, interested but absorbing and not trying to act like he knew more than he knew, and just really interested in learning.
The next time you see him?
The next time I see him is summer 2009. The big issue there is that he really wants to make sure I’m moving forward on cost control. I think that at this point he sort of knew we had a good plan on coverage, but he was worried on cost control. So we had a meeting in the Oval Office with several experts, including myself, on what can we do to get credible savings on cost control that the Congressional Budget Office would recognize and score as savings in this law.
And that was a meeting — it was very exciting, once again, because the economists in the room all said the number one thing you need to do is you need to take on the tax subsidy to employer-sponsored insurance. We need one minute of background on this. The way employer-sponsored insurance works is, if you get paid in wages, you get taxed. If you get paid in health insurance, you do not. ...
so this tax subsidy economists have been railing against for decades, it’s super-expensive. We forego about $250 billion per year in tax revenues. It’s regressive — the richer you are, the bigger tax break you get. And it’s inefficient because it causes people to buy excessive health insurance. So everyone in the room said, “You want something that is real cost control that we know it will work, go after this.”
Now, 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 talk about, well, how could we make this work? And Obama was like, “Well, you know” — I mean, he is really a realistic guy. He is like, “Look, I can’t just do this.” He said: “It is just not going to happen politically. The bill will not pass. How do we manage to get there through phases and other things?” And we talked about it. And he was just very interested in that topic.
Once again, that ultimately became the genesis of what is called the Cadillac tax in the health care bill, which I think is one of the most important and bravest parts of the health care law and doesn’t get nearly enough credit. I mean, this is the first time after years and years of urging — and the entire health policy, there was not one single health expert in America who is setting up a system from scratch, would have this employer subsidy in place. Not one.
So after years and years of us wanting to get rid of this, to finally go after it was just such a huge victory for health policy. And I’m just incredibly proud that he and the others who supported this law were willing to do it. ...
Is there a difference in the Obama you see in 2006 and the Obama you see, especially in the summer of 2009? ...
You know, I would have thought — in one case I’m sitting in his Senate office; in the other I’m in the Oval Office. One case he is just a senator, and the other he is the president. He is just so relaxing to be around. It was not stressful. It’s just people going by. I was a little nervous. It’s the president, after all. But he’s just kind of interested in what people had to say.
The way these meetings work is everyone gives their little five-minute spiel, and then he would make a comment or two, and they would go around, and then we would have a discussion.
And he had a couple of remarks after everybody’s, and he was clearly interested, and he was clearly thinking about it. But once again, it felt sort of like an academic meeting, not academic in the pejorative sense, academic like in the academy. It was just a fun, intellectual conversation. ...
If you really want to see publicly how Obama works, then the key thing to do is watch that Blair House meeting. That, to me, is one of the proudest moments. That was an incredibly intellectual exercise where Obama sat in front of a bunch of people, including people very opposed, and held his own and discussed the policy issues and really, he is just a smart guy and interested in getting it right.
That was the Obama you recognized?
That was the Obama I recognized, yes.
(more vomit at link)
Jonathan Gruber uses the words and attitudes of every flimflam man who has taken a mark and is proud of it.
Con artist... criminal... lowlife. Gruber functions at a higher level than the boiler room swindler selling 'get rich' scams to the innocent. The difference is clothes and setting... MIT 'looks' better - but it's the same mindset.
Every country in the world run by 'liberal elites' is a hellhole - and this type of arrogant bastard is the reason why...
Here is his Harvard PhD thesis.
“Empirical analysis
of two data sets suggest that changes in employers’ costs of
workers’ compensation insurance are largely shifted to employees in the form of lower wages. In addition, higher insurance costs are found to have a negative but statistically insignificant effect on employment.”
Conclusion
“This paper has analyzed the impact of cost shifting in response to increases in mandated workers’ compensation insurance costs. The results suggest that a substantial portion of the cost to employers of providing workers’ compensation benefits are shifted to employees in the form of lower wages....”
“...The adverse employment effects of mandated health
insurance may well be larger than those in workers’
compensation insurance because the minimum wage is likely to be more of a constraint for uninsured
workers,...”
http://www.nber.org/papers/w3557.pdf
Ironypalooza!
The Hypocrisy and IRONY run RICH with this one.
This is what he said in his paper about the smoking tax. Good grief, the Nanny State.
(1) smokers that smoked early wished they hadn’t
(2) smokers have a self control problem
okay, but this is his response as what to do.
Given this evidence, policymakers should not be applying the standard economics model [in which people are presumed to act rationally] to smoking policy, which would imply relatively little merit for features such as warning labels. Rather, it is important to consider alternative models that incorporate the type of evidence cited above. For example, my own research shows that if you treat all smokers as standard, rational, patient, forward-looking consumers, then we should probably tax cigarettes at below $1 per pack. But if you incorporate the self-control problems noted above — not even including the failures of teens to anticipate the future — the appropriate tax rises to $5 to $10 per pack.
What standard model is this? The common sense, free-market economics model presumes utilitarianism, not virtue. It's simply trade, fer cryin' out loud. If he can't get the first principles of economics right...
When he was at Harvard for his PhD, an unnamed “political science” prof, suggested that Gruber use his great mind for social good, as in “you don’t know what’s good for ya, so Govt. will tell you”.
That’s no economic model that works. When you tax the heck out of something, and that “behavior” that Govt. doesn’t like, stops, the tax inflow from the “bad behavior” dries up. Then the need for Govt. to raise more taxes.
I think this guy, being on the Govt. payroll, and I’m including academics in that (if the colleges can’t control their costs and their answer to that is non-stop tuition increases), he’s lost touch with reality. He admits that the American Public was his “petri dish” for his grand idea. His “ivory tower” model said it worked.
Interesting how he calls Mitt Romney, a “f***ing liar”. The IRONY.
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