Five Republicans in the Vermont General Assembly are calling for Gov. Peter Shumlin to cancel a $450,000 contract with MIT economist Jonathan Gruber after a series of videos showed the Obamacare architect acknowledging that deceit was used in crafting the law.
"We actually have a saying here in Vermont that Vermont is what America was, and we demand two things from those who are elected or appointed to official positions: transparency and respect," Vermont Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning said Tuesday on
Fox News Channel's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren."
"At this point, this man has lost both the respect and the transparency aura that is necessary to advance this size of a piece of social engineering," Benning said.
Gruber said in one video that vague wording in the Affordable Care Act relied on the "stupidity of the American voter" when it came to understanding economics.
In another video, Gruber, testifying before a Vermont legislative panel, responded to a question by asking, "Was this written by my adolescent children by any chance?"
The question was actually written by John McClaughry, who served as an adviser to President Ronald Reagan and is a former two-term state senator.
Gruber was paid nearly $400,000 by the White House to help craft Obamacare, but was hired by several states, including Vermont, to advise them on their state-run healthcare exchanges. He is expected to present a report to the state in January.
After the videos of Gruber's remarks were released last week, three Republican state representatives sent a letter to the governor on Monday, calling for Gruber's contract to be canceled,
WCAX-TV in Burlington reports.
Benning and State Sen. Kevin Mullin have publicly joined in that demand.