Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer is asking Governor Peter Shumlin’s administration to provide his office with further information about the billing practices of controversial MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, as Breitbart News reported Thursday.
Specifically, Hoffer wants more details about the names, employment status, and contact information of the unnamed research assistants Professor Gruber says have worked 1,000 hours on the $280,000 contract he has with the state of Vermont.
Late Thursday, Breitbart News asked Professor Gruber if he was aware of Mr. Hoffer’s request and if he intended to provide the Shumlin administration with the information requested.
Professor Gruber’s emailed response to our inquiry was a terse “sorry, no comment.”
Here are the eight specific questions posed to Professor Gruber by Breitbart News, to which he refused to offer any answers:
1. Have you provided the information Vermont State Auditor Hoffer requested about your research assistants to the Shumlin administration?
2. If not, will you provide that information within the next several days?
3. How many research assistants have worked on your Vermont contract?
4. Did they submit invoices to you upon which you paid them?
5. If so, will you produce those invoices?
6. Will you produce the cancelled checks that are evidence that you’ve paid them?
7. Have you, to date, paid them the $80,000 you’ve been paid so far for the 1,000 hours of their time for which you’ve billed the State of Vermont?
8. If you haven’t paid them $80,000, how much have you paid them?
Critics of Vermont’s proposed single-payer health care plan, which Gruber’s contract is intended to evaluate, are unimpressed with his lack of transparency.
“Professor Gruber’s continued failure to respond to legitimate questions about the details of his lucrative personal services contract with the state of Vermont does little to enhance his already damaged credibility,” Darcie Johnston, founder of Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, tells Breitbart News.