Posted on 07/11/2011 7:23:27 PM PDT by markomalley
Ben Stein, an economist, actor, and conservative writer, said taxes should be raised on millionaires and billionaires to help reduce the federal deficit.
“I am in favor of greatly raising the taxes on very wealthy people, millionaires and billionaires. I wouldn't raise the taxes on people making $250,000 a year,” said Stein in a June 29 interview on The O’Reilly Factor, guest-hosted by Laura Ingraham.
Earlier, on June 25, Stein had told Cavuto on Business, “We've got to raise taxes. There's just no way around it. The deficit situation is so serious that while I wish we did not have to raise taxes, we just can't cut spending enough. I wish we could. We can't. We have to raise taxes.”
“Mr. Obama is going to have to do it,” said Stein. “I don't know if the Republicans in the House will go along with it. If they don't, there will be a genuine crisis, and I am frankly frightened about it. I'm extremely concerned about it.”
In the interview with Ingraham, Stein defended his position, saying, “Look, it's a basic arithmetic thing; it's not an ideological thing. We are spending an enormous amount of money that we're not covering with tax revenue; we're borrowing it. At some point we're going to have so much debt that there's going to be a crisis and there will have to be austerity measures here just as they were in Greece.”
Congress has the right to raise taxes on the rich and the president can sign it into law, said Stein, who added that the very wealthy are “not paying enough.” He also said that one “cannot correlate low taxes with high productivity.”
Ingraham remarked that the federal budget is nearly $4 trillion and the national debt is over $14 trillion. She then asked Stein, “Do we have a spending problem? Is the spending a bigger problem than taxing the rich, yes or no?”
Stein said, “The spending is a huge problem, it depends on how you calculate it,” adding that, “We're not going to be able to eliminate Social Security, we're not going to be able -- going to be able to eliminate Medicare. We've got to do both. We've got to cut spending and raise taxes on the rich.”
Since that is not what obama means by millionaires and “the wealthy”, he really needs to milk the middle class
But it would be fun to watch urkel and his corporate jet buddies and the DEMOCRAT congressmen (no GOP) who wrote special tax breaks for corporate jet depreciation into the stimulus bill) if the GOP gave him literally what he demagogues for
demensia?
To think what the Obama crowd want to do was already tried at James town and Plymouth Rock!
http://1elearn.com/nccs/lesson_2.html
[ I am finding myself reluctantly agreeing with several posters who wonder if maybe Stein has been a mole all along. ]
Stein lives in the Hollywood area.. seems to be pandering for some kind of “business”.. or cocktail party “cred”...
He needs to NOT be able to live this down..
He hasn’t amused me.. I will remember..
Spoken like a true liberal. Conservative my @ss. He's obviously gone over to the dark side.
Is Ben writing a check—to lead by example?
I USED to really like Ben Stein (other people on my "USED to really like" list include Bob Barr and Joe Birkett). He was one of the conservatives who saw the Arnold Schwarzenegger scam for what it was in the beginning, and supported Tom McClintock in the recall election.
I think Stein started jumping the shark around 2007-2008. His "wtf" moment for me was when he not only endorsed Al Franken for U.S. Senate, but gave Franken a sizable donation. Seriously, of all the Dems you could endorse, Franken had to be the most unqualified and unhinged nut they could put up... and for the Dems that's really saying something! Stein didn't even have "I supported him cuz he was a fellow Jew" blinded by ethnic bias excuse, since the Republican incumbent was ALSO Jewish.
Stein's only gone downhill since then, IMO. I believe he voted for Obama in '08.
As the whole mortgage mess started to become obvious to the whole world and the financial markets were starting to implode, Stein was still pumping things up saying it was the best buying opportunity he’d seen in his lifetime, that the credit crunch was “overblown” and the sub-prime problem was a “tiny problem.” The man is a tool, IMO.
Of course, supporting Franken is a pretty good reason not to like him, too. LOL
Thanks for validating my point.
Because if you are 50 or older, you want your gubmint bennies. A lot of GOP voters fit that description.
Why don’t we just sell New England to the Chinese? The people living there would never notice the difference...
And thank you for validating mine. If you want to break the SS contract by means testing some people out, then you’re making a grab for the cash just as greedily as the leftmost of libs.
Just one quick question: If you invested in something over your life for your retirement, would you be a little POed when a socialist comes along and says, “You have enough money. It’s time to spread that wealth around a little.”?
A straight answer will do, I’ve already seen a whole thread full of your hooey declarations that retired people are leeches, so spare me that part.
First, social security is not an investment. It's a tax that funds a government entitlement program. You hold no property in the trust fund. It belongs to the gubmint.
Second, you have no right to your benefits--only to due process. The SCOTUS had upheld the right of the government to revise the schedule of benefits.(See Flemming v Nestor)
Third, I do invest for my retirement, and the government does come along and try to spread the wealth around. They try to raise my capital gains taxes and my dividends taxes. Those are real investments. They are my real property. And yes, it pisses me off.
But hey, keep on defending the largest government program in the world, and call me the liberal. lol.
I stopped right there. No, it's not supposed to be. To see that you think it is tells me all I need to know about trying to explain it to you. You are impervious to the truth, and I fail to see how you can call yourself a conservative. Good day.
(Pssst: I do invest for my own retirement. That's why talk of "means-testing" pi$$es me off, because I'm the one they want to test out. So are you, if you are investing for the future. I don't care if Steve Gates gets SS, if he paid in to it. It's morally wrong to look at other people and covet their resources.)
I also disagree with him and other economists who claim that the tax rates are all that matter. It is not just the tax rates (although a flat tax is best for growth)—it is the TAX REVENUE (which includes spending). It is very simple: The more tax revenue that goes to the government, the worse the economy will perform if such revenue had been lower. We don’t want to just lower the tax rates and keep the same overall tax revenue—we want to flatten and broaden the rates and also produce less tax revenue to the government. Also, when I use the words tax revenue, I also mean spending since all spending is funded with tax revenue eventually.
I also disagree with him and other economists who claim that the tax rates are all that matter. It is not just the tax rates (although a flat tax is best for growth)—it is the TAX REVENUE (which includes spending). It is very simple: The more tax revenue that goes to the government, the worse the economy will perform if such revenue had been lower. We don’t want to just lower the tax rates and keep the same overall tax revenue—we want to flatten and broaden the rates and also produce less tax revenue to the government. Also, when I use the words tax revenue, I also mean spending since all spending is funded with tax revenue eventually.
Huck, I want to say something here...my last post to you was rather flip and snarky. I want to give you a better response, one that may help us bridge the gap we have going here. OK?
Why? Because I’ve been reading you for many years now, and I respect you more than that. We’ve had this conversation before, so I think if I flesh out my position a bit more lucidly, you can at lest not think of me as some kind of greedy greybeard fool.
Let me ponder and I’ll get back, OK?
Look, I don't blame you for taking the position you take. I'm 43. If SS and Medicare make it a few more years, and I find myself in my early 50s, I'll be taking the same position you are taking. You don't want to be a sucker. Neither do I. I get it.
That's how Ponzi schemes work. No one wants to be the guy without a chair when the music stops, and no one wants to volunteer to be that guy. Hence the system is going to collapse. Then you'll get nothing.
Thanks. I really want to think this out, and post it here. I hate vanities, and I’d rather grind it out in the forum. BTW, I’m 53, youngun...lol...
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