Ben Stein Blames ‘Excessive Tax Cuts’ & ‘Voodoo Economics’ for Deficit, Hails ‘Grown-ups Like Bill Clinton’
During a pre-recorded commentary aired on CBS’s Sunday Morning show, right-leaning actor and economist Ben Stein - also a CBS contributor - blamed "excessive tax cuts" enacted by former President Bush and congressional Republicans for "starting the problem" of the current federal budget deficit, and advocated raising taxes on the wealthy in addition to "major spending cuts" and changes in Medicare and Social Security to get the deficit under control. Stein: "The Republicans who started the problem with excessive tax cuts in the Bush years will have to agree to raise taxes at least upon the truly rich of whom there are plenty."
And, while ignoring the presence of a Republican Congress that helped restrain spending growth during the Clinton administration, and the spike in tax revenue fueled by an unsustainable tech bubble, Stein concluded his commentary praising former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin as "grown-ups," awarding them credit for the balanced budget of the late 1990s.
Stein: "The grown-ups like Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin - his Treasury Secretary who actually balanced the budget - left the federal fiscal scene more than 10 years ago. Now it's time to live within our means. No more voodoo economics. We can do it. The first step is back through the looking glass into reality. We've got to do it."
Ironically, last September, Stein gave a commentary on Sunday Morning complaining about the drive to raise taxes on the wealthy, leading Sy-Fy producer Linda McGibney to attack him personally in a commentary on the same show the following week.
Below is a complete transcript of the segment from the Sunday, April 17, Sunday Morning on CBS:
CHARLES OSGOOD: So where do America's finances stand on this tax-filing eve? Here's our contributor Ben Stein.
BEN STEIN: As I make my way around the nation these days, travelers come up to me and ask me about the federal budget: Are we about to go broke? Will we have a crisis? Whose fault is it all? So here's a little lesson on the subject. We are not about to go broke. Our total federal debt is roughly equal to our yearly national output as an economy, the Gross Domestic Product. This is a very high ratio not seen since World War II.
But we've survived that high debt largely because the economy was growing fast, the big deficit stopped, and the federal debt as a relative matter shrank. Nowadays, we have immense deficits added to the debt for years to come with no end in sight. And the economy is growing slowly - maybe not at all. At some unknown point, the debt will be so large relative to the national output that our U.S. Treasury and Securities will be downgraded in terms of credit quality. That will raise borrowing costs, already a massive expense, and be a shock altogether.
But we cannot go broke as a government because the Federal Reserve, a part of the government, can literally print money, as much money as it wants. And that money is, well, money except as such we can't run out of it. The problem there is that if we print too much, we'll probably have inflation, and that's bad for most Americans. Can all these problems be solved? Well, as my old dad, the economist Herbert Stein - used to say, if something cannot go on forever it will stop. So these huge deficits will stop.
The Republicans who started the problem with excessive tax cuts in the Bush years will have to agree to raise taxes at least upon the truly rich of whom there are plenty. The Democrats will have to agree to major spending cuts. I hope these will not be in defense, but some probably will be. Social Security and Medicare will be changed a lot. All in all, we Americans just promised ourselves more than we can deliver. We lived in a dream world. The grown-ups like Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin - his Treasury Secretary who actually balanced the budget - left the federal fiscal scene more than 10 years ago. Now it's time to live within our means. No more voodoo economics. We can do it. The first step is back through the looking glass into reality. We've got to do it.
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Comments
Nevermind that part of the
Submitted by gvik on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 4:37pm.
Nevermind that part of the reason the so-called grownups were able to balance the budget was through the exchange of dollars for "Not worth the paper they are printed on" IOU's. And we can also set aside the fact that the excessive Bush tax cuts were actually a return to normalcy after Billy&Company had jacked the rates up to the sky.
I don't really pay much attention to Ben Stein, but I thought he'd be a little smarter than to toss out the stereotypical ultra-liberal's favorite argument.
I did too, but then
Submitted by rockyracoon on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 5:22pm.
I did too, but then remembered that he once worked for Nixon, and Nixon was not a conservative. I think Ben has been sitting in the Hollywood sun too long, and it has fried his brain.
Facts are like kryptonite to the liberal.
Citibank
Submitted by Marsh on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 5:06pm.
Didn't Robert Rubin help to drive Citibank into the ground, which in turn lead to the financial crisis?
Bein Stein is Out of His League, Here
Submitted by Tenebrous on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 6:02pm.
It's not voodoo economics if it works. Someone please point Ben to the revenue brought into the Treasury by Bush's "voodoo economics". Then someone please point him to the drastic revenue fall when Obama assumed office. Tax rates are important, but when you pair them with certainty/trust then you have the whole picture.
Visions and Principles blog
Convenient forgetfulness for
Submitted by robert108 on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 6:16pm.
Convenient forgetfulness for Stein. Before the American people turned the House back to the Republicans after 40years of Dem spending, Clinton tried to foist both a "stimulus package" and a billion-dollar takeover called Hillarycare, before he was stopped. Since we didn't stop either obama's "stimulus package" or Obamacare, we are in a prolonged recession/stagnant economy caused by destructive Dem social engineering policies.
Bill Clinton had to be
Submitted by eaglewingz08 on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 6:17pm.
Bill Clinton had to be carried kicking and screaming to balancing the budget. Second, Clinton recklessly chose to eviscerate the military budget in order to balance the budget in the name of the 'peace dividend'. Third, there was this guy named Newt Gingrich whose 'extreme' views on balancing the budget was adopted by the republican congress. So if the media is hyping Bill Clinton as an adult (cause he went along with the proposed cuts by republicans in congress) then is Obama an infant for doing the exact opposite?
I like Stein most of the
Submitted by Slyrr on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 6:32pm.
I like Stein most of the time. But if he thinks Clinton is a 'grown up', he's WAY off base. Clinton was, and still is, nothing more than a pre-pubescent sex-crazed teenager wearing the body of a clammy old man. Moreover, he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to enact welfare reform.
And does Stein remember his 'grown up' Clinton, who in part got elected on a promise that he would NOT raise taxes, crawling out of his den barely a couple days later, chewing on his lips and spouting this bilge? 'I want you people to know I fought as hard as I could to keep your taxes low. I want you to know that I watered my pillow every night with my tears, crying and weeping over this. But my hands are tied! I have no choice but to raise your taxes!'
Yeah. 'Grown-up' indeed.
New IRS slogan...
Submitted by retrocon on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 6:47pm.
"Take Ben Stein's Money!"
Ben has been surrounded by elitists for a bit too long, me thinks.
Grown ups like Bill Clinton?
Submitted by Semus on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 6:50pm.
Grown ups like Bill Clinton? Wow, I wasn' t expecting that, but maybe he's taken the same road as George Will. George WIl taken some very odd stands lately too. Is something frightening them? It's as though they want to be the only people who represent right and no one else is qualified. Then again maybe the thugs in Wisconsin sacred them it got pretty ugly.
ok...I read it twice
Submitted by theprofessor on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 7:26pm.
If Ben Stein truly wrote that himself,,,well,,, I would say he's slippin'. So much for deep thinking. Yikes.
Default should not be a problem.
Submitted by big.league.slider on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 7:37pm.
Fiscal liberals like Stein keep using the canard that default will raise the cost of borrowing for the federal government. If the President and the members of Congress start acting like adults, quit deficit spending, quit borrowing money, and pay down the national debt, the cost of borrowing will be irrelevant. In fact, if the US government quits borrowing huge amounts of money, the market will be forced to respond with lower rates.
I, too, am generally a Ben fan,
Submitted by SickofLibs on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 7:52pm.
but if he that was that savvy of an investor, why did he take that dumbass spokes-tool gig for Visine that made him look a like a clown?
Just Ben-centric PR?
Not the first time
Submitted by ckc1227 on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 8:07pm.
This isn't the first time Stein has pined for higher taxes. It's amazing how incredibly intelligent people can be so incredibly stupid at times.
Ben Stein
Submitted by PeterStone on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 8:50pm.
I have a friend who is underwater on his house and owes the max on 5 credit cards. He keeps telling me he has to 'earn' more money and might have to take a second job.
I tell him his problem is not that he doesn't earn enough. His problem is that he spends too much.
Is that any different than Washington's problem?
Kasich, not Clinton & Rubin . . .
Submitted by Kylerk on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 9:38pm.
As far as I'm concerned the person who deserves all the credit in the world for balancing the budget during the Clinton years was Congressman John Kasich, just as he will do for the state of Ohio as Governor. Just as eaglewingz08 stated - Clinton and Rubin went along kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, this is just another piece of US History that has been re-written by the MSM.
People easily forget how
Submitted by buddyc on Mon, 04/18/2011 - 12:06pm.
People easily forget how Kasich and Gingrich were vilified (much worse than even poor Ryan) for merely reducing the rate of increase in government spending.
You are right, Kasich and the republican congress are the reason the budget was almost balanced. (Is is really balanced if you are stealing money from the Social Security Trust Fund?)
Clinton wanted to be liked by
Submitted by Rusty Shackleford on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 11:58pm.
Clinton wanted to be liked by all and re-elected so he went along with the Republican congress. Obama does not want to be liked by all: he wants to be liked by the hard left and only the hard left. I don't think he would even want to be president if he had to moderate in order to be liked by all. He's in it to bring down the big bad USA and go down in history as the ultimate champion of the world's hard leftist.
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Chris Matthews: The Joy Behar of MSNBC.
Bill Maher: The Joy Behar of HBO.
Paul Krugman: The Joy Behar of The New York Times.
Stein? Stein?
Submitted by brutony1 on Mon, 04/18/2011 - 2:33am.
He should stop worrying about Bueller and pay attn to the crap that spews out of his mouth! I guess hes become a Follywood libtard hanging with them enough. He probably convinced Nixon to take us off the gold standard!
When will liberals WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE! -Me
Be Stein
Submitted by Edward Cropper on Mon, 04/18/2011 - 8:59am.
How could any rational conservative take anything Ben Stein says seriously, or even listen to his nasal spew, after this phony endorsed Al Franken for the Senate
I am a big time Ben Stein
Submitted by buddyc on Mon, 04/18/2011 - 12:03pm.
I am a big time Ben Stein fan. I think he has great intelligence and common sense.
But I think his timing is off on this. First there has to be major cuts. Then we see where we are at. There are many things that are a waste, unproductive, over paid and the like. We need to gut many things and start over.
THENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN and only then, if we need it, some incremental tax increases or elimination of loopholes accross the board, NOT based on wealth. The 47% WHO ARE NOT paying taxes need to be taxed, even if it is a very small amount.