GOP Rep. Jim Jordan: Maybe it's time for House hearings on Jon Gruber's ObamaCare remarks

A fine idea. Democrats will whine that the new GOP is the same as the old GOP, obsessed as ever with revisiting old ObamaCare business, but that message can and will be countered by sending a few splashy bills to Obama’s desk, starting with Keystone.

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Good things happen for conservatives when the subject of O-Care comes up and Jon Gruber’s piehole is anywhere near a microphone. Let’s sit him down in front of one on Capitol Hill, with live coverage on the cable networks, and go over in detail just how stupid the architect of Obama’s giant health-care boondoggle thinks American voters are.

“We may want to have hearings on this,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an influential voice among GOP hardliners and a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in an interview at the Capitol. “We shouldn’t be surprised they were misleading us.”…

Jordan said House Republicans have been sending each other a blizzard of e-mails and text messages this week, and he expects the interest in “bringing [Gruber] up here to talk” will gain traction as members return to Washington. House Republicans will gather Thursday evening for their first series of votes since the election…

Elsewhere in the Capitol, House GOP leadership aides expressed new optimism that their desire to target the ACA could get some momentum. While rhetorically committed to full repeal, in order to keep the party’s right flank on board, the party is looking more seriously at undermining specific parts of the law as it navigates divided government next year. Those moves could include repealing the medical device tax; watering down a requirement that employers offer full time workers coverage, which takes effect in January; and changing the definition of a full-time worker from someone who works at least 30 hours a week to someone who works at least 40 — all proposals which could win some Democratic support.

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Lots of benefits to doing this. For starters, as noted in the excerpt, it’s a boost to Republicans in chipping off the least popular parts of ObamaCare. If Joe Manchin and the rest of the rump Democratic caucus thought it’d be hard to resist voting with the GOP before, imagine how hard it’ll be after a day or two of Jon Gruber’s greatest hits in front of a House committee. Politically, it’s potentially helpful too to Bill Cassidy in knocking off Mary Landrieu in next month’s Louisiana runoff. Obviously the House would need to move quickly if they want Gruber to testify before the state votes, but it’s worth their while in this case. Landrieu was, after all, the 60th vote for ObamaCare, just as all Senate Democrats were. Let’s give Louisianans a snoutful of the contempt they’re held in by Obama and his progressive cronies. In fact, see if you can guess who said this: “The core problem under the damn law is it was put together by a bunch of elitists who don’t fundamentally understand the American people. That’s what the problem is.” Ted Cruz? Nope: Howard Dean. If even Dean-o’s that angry about Gruber’s comments, they’re a potent weapon against Landrieu.

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Most importantly, dragging Gruber before Congress to explain how the White House gamed CBO and the public to sell O-Care will also give the GOP a chance to revisit his “speak-o” comments, in which he admitted during the drafting of the law — more than once — that federal subsidies for new ObamaCare enrollees should be limited to consumers using state exchanges, not the federal exchange. That’s the point of contention in the Halbig case that was just accepted for review by the Supreme Court. Since we’re destined to have a left/right war for public opinion over that anyway as oral arguments get closer, with liberals mumbling endlessly that the ambiguous language in the statute was just a “typo,” we might as well start early by calling our star witness — the one and only Jon Gruber. Who knows? Maybe John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy are on the fence about Halbig and sympathetic to the typo argument. Let ol’ piehole set them straight on live television.

If you can believe it, the Daily Caller has a third video of this tool sneering at the ignorance of an electorate that twice elected Obama, this time over O-Care’s “Cadillac tax.” Quote: “It’s a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.” The guy who dug it up isn’t a reporter but rather an investment advisor who does this in his spare time as a public service, knowing that big media isn’t the least bit interested in exposing the ruses used to pass ObamaCare.

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