Jonathan Gruber seems to be giving the propagandists of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia a run for their money. In addition to bragging about hoodwinking the American public into believing that healthcare reform was actually about reforming healthcare, he has also called abortion a “social good” because it kills “marginal children” in poor communities. This gem of a human being, unsurprisingly, was also a vocal advocate for former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s cigarette tax… Ya know, the $5.85 tax on each pack of smokes (which inevitably drives tobacco sales to the criminal, tax-evading, entrepreneurs like Eric Garner)? According to Breitbart.com:
Michael Bloomberg, who is infamous for regulating everything from large sodas to tanning salons to guns, hired Jonathan Gruber in 2008 to write a report on the implications of tobacco taxes, titled A Modern Economic View of Tobacco Taxation.
So Gruber was paid by Bloomy to put a positive spin on the NYC tobacco tax? Well… I guess that pretty much explains why the tax seems to be as much of a disaster as Obamacare. Sure, Bloomberg might have been able to pay an academic snake-oil salesman to put his Goebbels spin on the Nannycratic (and excessive) taxation of Lucky Strikes, but that doesn’t change the fact that the law is still based on dependably oppressive big-government. (If Eric Garner was killed by NYPD for refusing to pay a cigarette tax, I’d hate to see what happens to someone who refuses to pay their Obamacare tax.)
Aside from Gruber’s obvious penchant for pitching oppressive government schemes, he also seems to have a knack for defending policies doomed to failure. Heck, while the American public has been increasingly kicking the habit of puffing on a cancer stick, New Yorkers have been exponentially picking it up. (I guess Al Capone was right: Outlaw a vice, and millionaires will be made.) It’s almost enough to make you wonder if Gruber advertises his ability to dupe the American public into hopeless experiments of big-government failure.
Just like Obamacare, Bloomberg’s punitive tax on tobacco is ineffective, invasive, and antithetical to market based morality. (And, given that I never called the killing of unborn children a “social good” because it targets “marginal children”, I think I have a little moral high ground from which to lecture Gruber.) Gruber, regrettably, represents everything that is wrong with the progressive dependence on academic propaganda justification.
After all, the consequence of big government is not that hard to quantify:
Cigarette taxes encourage those (highly addicted) smokers to smuggle, steal, or import their habit. Obamacare’s “taxes”, regulations, and fees tend to hike the overall cost of healthcare. Both of these observations are based off of current trends, not some whitepaper drafted by an Ivy League fertilizer salesman. (Apologies to actual fertilizer salesmen.)
It figures that Gruber crafted a PR campaign for the tax that ultimately cost Eric Garner his life. Jonathan Gruber has made millions of dollars shilling for progressive agendas; but his specialization seems to be crafting lies, distortions, and manipulations to sugar coat progressive failures. After all, academics aren’t really concerned with the real-world implications of their policy prescriptions (like increased costs, dropped healthcare coverage, or the death of Eric Garner)… Just so long as “dumb” voters believe them long enough to get the policy put into effect.
In other words: Gruber’s your typical progressive apologist.
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