House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked MIT professor Jonathan Gruber point-blank if he is “stupid” at the Capitol Hill hearing this morning.
The exchange went as follows:
"Mr. Gruber, I've been accused that I'm going to berate you or something and I hope it won't feel that way when I get done, but the night before last I was at the Kennedy Center honors where they honored Tom Hanks, famously Forrest Gump – the ultimate in successful stupid man," Issa said.
"Are you stupid?" Issa asked Gruber.
"I don't think so, no," the alleged Obamacare expert said.
"Does MIT employ stupid people?" Issa asked.
"Not to my knowledge," Gruber replied.
The questioning continued,
"Okay. So you're a smart man who said some, as the ranking member said, some really stupid things," Issa said. "Is that correct?"
"The comments I made were really inexcusable," Gruber said.
Gruber went on to apologize for his comments and for speaking as though he were an expert on the program. But wasn't he tapped for his "economic expertise" and his "proprietary statistically sophisticated micro-simulation model" that could aid the White House in determining the impact of its desired changes to U.S. healthcare policy?