Paul: Gruber Should Return Obamacare Advisory Salary

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said MIT professor Jonathan Gruber should return his paycheck instead of just apologizing for deliberately misleading, in Gruber’s words, the “stupid” American people.

How much Gruber would owe is a question guaranteed to prompt further hearings in the next Congress. On disclosure forms submitted to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Gruber wouldn’t say whether he earned more than $100,000 for his Obamacare advisory work. In the hearing, he noted that he was paid “$400,000, not the $4.1 million that had been reported in the media.”

When members of the committee asked exactly how much he was paid, Gruber replied, “The committee can take it up with my counsel.”

“Apparently, on some of his disclosure forms, he wasn’t quite accurate with this, so we need to look into that,” Paul told Fox. “But I think an apology is not enough. Basically, if you’re a consultant for government, you’re expected to be honest. He’s now admitted and bragged about how dishonest he was in the presentation of this. Because he said you know the way to get it through is to trick the American people. And by the way, his disdain for the American public is that they’re so stupid I can trick them.”

“I think really that’s not just — he shouldn’t just apologize. I think he should return his paycheck.”

Stressing that for “dishonesty and being paid for dishonesty, there should be repercussions,” Paul said the inspector general has been asked to investigate.

“I’d also like to see his communications with the White House, frankly. The White House pretends as if they don’t know who he is. And even though they’ve mentioned him by name in the past, he’s been to the White House many times. I’d like to know about the communication,” the senator said. “I’d also like to know did he use his position and did other people at the White House use their position to get him contracts? He made millions of dollars pedaling his false analysis to what, half a dozen state governments.”

Still, Paul said he didn’t think Gruber and the revelation of his comments necessarily turned the tide in midterms.

“Gruber was a small part of it. He didn’t lose the election for all the Democrats, but this building unhappiness with the president, limiting your choice to your doctor, all the limitations of Obamacare,” he said.

“And then we find out it’s a bunch of elitists who think we’re all you know too dumb to figure this out that they tricked us and gave us Obamacare. It’s insulting to most of us who live in Middle America, who think that these elitists think that they’re better than we are and they’re going to give us stuff and it’s going to be good for us and take it or else they’ll give us a penalty, or a tax as Justice Roberts calls it.”