Source: Fox News: Greg Gutfeld

Blunt… but TRUE.

He wrote both Romneycare and he wrote Obamacare. Almost a year ago, in October of 2013, Jonathan Gruber was in Philadelphia speaking at the 24th Annual Health Economics Conference, and he spoke about Obamacare and how and what they had to do to make it a reality.

In other words, they had to lie to you, and they relied on your stupidity. They counted on your stupidity to believe their lies such as, “You get to keep your doctor and you get to keep your health insurance plan,” such as, “Your premiums are gonna come down,” such as, “No they’re not taxes! There’s no way they’re taxes. No, no, no. And you’re gonna get subsidies if you can’t afford it, so don’t sweat it. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

“Lack of transparency” was the key because “the stupidity of the American voter” would have killed Obamacare. Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at MIT, and he said, “Lack of transparency,” meaning honesty. Lack of honesty was a major part of getting Obamacare passed because the stupidity of the American voter would have killed the law if more people knew what was in it.

There you go, America.

That is what the Democrat Party thinks of you.

This is not something new. He said this a year ago at a conference of economists, but it’s not new. This is how the Democrat Party thinks of most people, and it’s not hard to believe. They think most people are incapable of taking care of themselves, for example. Particularly women. They think most people are incompetent and will make the wrong decisions if living a life of self-reliance.

The Democrat Party thinks everybody’s a victim, primarily of America or of the Republican Party or of conservatives. They don’t dare be honest with you about what they believe. They know you wouldn’t vote for it, and that’s why you’re stupid. You don’t have the intelligence to see the brilliance of their ideas. What you have is the common sense to know they’re not good.

So this arrogant condescension is a commonplace point of view that is held by practical everybody, particularly at the top ranks of the Democrat Party. “The bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the CBO didn’t score the mandate as taxes.”

“If it was taxes, it would kill it,” meaning: You don’t want to pay higher taxes. Even though you’re paying higher premiums, higher everything, they had to lie to you about that, otherwise you would have resoundingly opposed it and it wouldn’t have happened.

They couldn’t dare be honest with you.

They still can’t.

 

A little background on Jonathan Gruber:

By MichaelJames
Jan 9, 2010 11:01am

The New York Times has an editor’s note today:

“On July 12, the Op-Ed page published an article by Jonathan Gruber, a professor of economics at M.I.T., on health insurance and taxation. On Friday, Professor Gruber confirmed reports that he is a paid consultant to the Department of Health and Human Services, and that his contract was in effect when he published his article. The article did not disclose this relationship to readers.

“Like other writers for the Op-Ed page, Professor Gruber signed a contract that obligated him to tell editors of such a relationship. Had editors been aware of Professor Gruber’s government ties, the Op-Ed page would have insisted on disclosure or not published his article.”

In November this blog, too, cited Gruber’s work with no disclosure (and no knowledge) that he had nearly $400,000 in lucrative contracts with the Department of Health and Human Services.

Gruber has been a go-to voice for reporters seeking a respected academic view on health care reform costs — and as far as I can tell, few if any knew that in March he was awarded a $95,000 contract with HHS and in June a $297,600 contract with HHS for providing “Technical Assistance in Evaluating Options for National Healthcare Reform.”

A Dec. 28, 2009 Washington Post op-ed by Gruber made no such disclosure. The piece, titled “‘Cadillac’ tax isn’t a tax — it’s a plan to finance real health reform” makes that case, strongly opposed by labor unions, that the Senate health care bill’s proposed “40 percent assessment on insurance plans with premiums of more than $8,500 for singles and $23,000 for families … would reduce the incentives for employers to provide excessively generous insurance, leading to more cost-conscious use of health care and, ultimately, lower spending.”

This is the same “Cadillac tax” proposal that President Obama is pushing House and Senate health care reform negotiators to include in the bill — and yes, it’s the same one he opposed on the campaign trail, noting in October 2008 in Newport News that some workers have “given up wage increases in exchange for a better health care.”

Gruber’s nearly $400,000 contract with the Obama administration seems to have first been noticed by a citizen-journalist-blogger, Mote Date at Daily Kos.
Ben Smith of Politico then jumped on the case.

Gruber told Smith:
“I do indeed have a contract with HHS. Throughout this year I have provided technical assistance to the administration and to Congress with my micro-simulation model, as well as based on my experience as a member of the Massachusetts health connector board. But NONE of the work I have done in public, or any public declarations I have made, has been in any way funded by the Administration. That funding was strictly for internal work that I did for the administration and, via the administration, for congress. All externally visible work and comments, such as my editorials or public reports, have been done on my own time.

“Moreover, at no time have I publicly advocated a position that I did not firmly believe — indeed, I have been completely consistent with my academic track record.

On the two issues this article raises:

“1) I am known in economics as one of the leading experts on the impact of health insurance costs on wages — indeed, I wrote my thesis on that topic and have written extensively since on the fact that health insurance costs are fully translated into wages. I was asked by the editors of the Handbook of Health Economics, a review of literature in this area, to write the review article on this topic.

“2) In my role as a member of the MA Health Connector board, I had to help decide what were affordable subsidies for our citizens. I was surprised to find how little work there was on this topic so I undertook a study to help lay out what might be considered affordable. I have since replicated that analysis at the federal level. Every position I have advocated on this topic is completely consistent with these reports.”

Gruber noted that in November he disclosed his relationship with the administration in an International Committee of Medical Journal Editors disclosure form he filled out before the New England Journal of Medicine published his story.

But the issue, as Smith and FireDogLake and others have noted, isn’t Gruber’s New England Journal of Medicine story, it’s that he’s been so frequently cited by members of the media as an expert — reporters who didn’t know the Obama administration was paying Gruber nearly $400,000.

Such as Ron Brownstein’s influential piece on health care reform in the Atlantic. Democratic senators such as John Kerry continue to push his work, likely just as oblivious as the rest of us as to Gruber’s HHS contract.

Comes down to “Follow the Money…”

If the Electorate wanted the Senate and the House to “Compromise” with the President, they would have voted for Democrats.

Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama’s home state of Illinois elected a Republican governor on Tuesday night. Massachusetts will have its first Republican governor since Mitt Romney.

Stunning Republican gubernatorial victories came in reliably Democratic states, including those won overwhelmingly by Obama in 2012. Illinois ousted Democrat Pat Quinn in favor of Republican Bruce Rauner, while Maryland voters opted for Republican Larry Hogan over Democrat Anthony Brown. Republican Charlie Baker won a Massachusetts match-up against Martha Coakley, the state attorney general who lost a special Senate election to Scott Brown in 2010.

Republicans also continued their dominance of governors’ mansions when a number of GOP leaders fought off stiff challenges from Democrats…

ABC — Republicans have strengthened their majority control of the House of Representatives. Now, the only question remaining is how big that majority will grow.

As of 12:30 a.m. ET, ABC News had projected that Republicans had won 239 seats in the House to 180 for Democrats, which already gives the GOP a stronger hold than they had in the previous Congress, when they had a 34-seat majority. ABC News projected that by the time the night is over, Republicans will have gained between 14 and 18 seats in the House.

LA Times — Riding a surge of voter discontent, Republicans seized control of the Senate on Tuesday, giving the GOP full command of Congress
Washington (CNN) — South Carolina’s Tim Scott on Tuesday became the first African-American senator to win election in the South since Reconstruction…
Scott’s win also made him the first African-American in U.S. history to be elected to both the House and the Senate.

Image Source: 2014 Wall Street Journal 

Most people are still earning less, adjusted for inflation, than before the recession struck at the end of 2007. Even many who kept their jobs through the recession — or easily found work after being let go — are no better off. The typical family income in current dollars is $52,959, according to Sentier Research. Factoring in inflation, that’s $3,303 less than before the recession — a nearly 6 percent drop.

FEWER FULL-TIME JOBS

Finding a steady full-time job has become harder. There are 27.4 million part-time jobs, representing 18.8 percent of jobs in the U.S. economy, according to the Labor Department. Before the recession, 16.5 percent of all jobs were part time.

BEHIND ON MORTGAGES

Whatever wealth most Americans have is mainly tied up in their homes. But roughly seven years after the housing bust, owning a home has still been a bad investment for many.

Nearly 37 percent of mortgage holders were “effectively underwater” through the first three months of 2014, according to the real estate firm Zillow. That means they either owe more than their homes are worth or a sale wouldn’t generate enough money to cover the closing costs and down payment for a new home.

Just 39 percent of everyone surveyed in June said the economy was improving; 56 percent described it as getting worse. The consumer confidence reading for existing conditions was, negative 14.

CAUTIOUS SHOPPING

Most Americans are still being careful at cash registers and online checkouts. Consumer spending has risen at an average annual pace of just 2.2 percent since the recession ended in mid-2009. That’s far below the 3.4 percent average in the two decades preceding the recession.

Confidence in the economy is still relatively low, suggesting that people are buying what they need instead of what they want. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index was 85.2 in June. In the 20 years preceding the downturn, it averaged nearly 102. 1

So, how is Obama Economics working out for you?

The fundamental reason why all this is happening is the pie that everybody wants a piece of… That’s just the private sector. When the government comes in and absorbs one-sixth of it in the health care takeover called Obamacare, the pie gets smaller.

As government grows, how does it grow?

It has to take money from other people, allocate it to itself to spend it however it wishes. It’s called redistribution; it doesn’t produce anything. The private sector is getting smaller. The pie is all getting smaller, and that’s why there’s less of it to be had for people. You want to talk about why the gap between rich and poor is expanding? It’s because the pie’s getting smaller, and the pie can only get smaller as government grows.

That’s the argument against government expansion in its simplest form. The argument against government expansion is that it shrinks opportunity for everybody who doesn’t work or have anything to do with government.

Now… Lets take a look at President Obama’s view on our Economy:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) July 9, 2014 — President Barack Obama took credit on Wednesday for the U.S. economic rebound after the financial crisis of 2008.

“Thanks to the hard work of you – and some actually smart policies by us, we have come further and recovered faster than almost any other advanced country on Earth,”

Obama said in a campaign-style speech in Denver. Obama trumpeted an agenda of “economic patriotism,” … 2

 Seriously, this man lies to the American Public on a regular basis about a multitude of topics, why should he – after 6 years – start letting facts get in the way??

1 Source: AP: AS US JOB MARKET STRENGTHENS, MANY DON’T FEEL IT
2 Source: MarketWatch: Obama: U.S. economic recovery among fastest on earth

Video: In September, during her “talking tour,” Elizabeth Warren, professor at Harvard Law, talking about the economy and class warfare.

Elizabeth Warren believes that since the government, “pays for the basics,” such as roads, that the government thus controls everything. Obama is surrounded by people like this.

She forgets that this factory owner and factory builder also paid taxes that built the roads and the infrastructure around, and so did his employees.

The government doesn’t have any money until it takes it from people first. But this notion that we’re all just one giant commune is the justification for the redistribution of wealth.

This is the liberal justification for class warfare, for class envy, for redistribution of wealth, for taking, because nobody really deserves what they have.

Nobody should have anything more than anybody else because everybody always does it on the backs of other people.

The factory owner, illegitimate. The business owner, illegitimate. Nothing special about him. Nothing special about somebody who built something from nothing because he really didn’t. He couldn’t have done it without screwing a bunch of other people along the way.

Total collectivism. It’s all found in Marx. It’s all there, and it’s all based on the presumption that all success is illegitimate, including the success of the country.

Pay attention America, this is what they believe. This is liberal policy foundation.