Fox Forum has a piece up by Grover Norquist discussing the scandal surrounding MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, who has been under contract with the Department of Health and Human Services while touting provisions of the Democrats’ healthcare reform proposals in the media. 

From the piece:

While House and Senate health care negotiators meet behind closed doors to put together a final reconciled package (much to the dismay of taxpayers who had been promised that they’d be privy to the negotiations) another transparency scandal has come to light.

MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, who for months been touting the administration’s health care plan in the media, has been under contract for nearly $300,000 with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) while promoting government-supported policies. Although such a conflict of interest may not be outright illegal, it constitutes a serious problem, and the failure to disclose it is clearly unethical.

Taxpayers should not be on the hook to pay for government propaganda campaigns, and Americans for Tax Reform and its Center for Fiscal Accountability have asked Jonathan Gruber to swiftly return the money he has been awarded under his contract with HHS to taxpayers.

Norquist also takes a look at the media response:

In 2005, Armstrong Williams’s failure to disclose financial relations with the White House — while championing education policies consistent with the Bush administration’s policies in the media — created a firestorm that became front page news in the Washington Post and other media outlets. Curiously, this time around, the outcry on Capitol Hill and in the establishment press regarding Gruber’s ethical challenge has been tepid to non-existent so far.

Change you can believe in?