Ben Stein may be known best by my generation knows as the best as the economics teacher in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (”Bueller…. Bueller….?). But he is also an attorney, former presidential speechwriter (for Nixon and Ford) and regular newspaper columnist for the New York Times.
Stein’s political beliefs generally tilt towards the right, pictured above at the 2000 Republican National Convention. He is notoriously anti-evolution, pro-life and fiscally conservative.
That’s why this article from Sunday’s New York Times (though published on the web on Saturday, free registration required) fascinated me. Stein came out in swinging against McCain’s economic and tax platform.
Stein begins by quoting McCain as saying that he won’t raise taxes. That, Stein says, more or less, sounds nice. And then he inserts the big BUT:
But the unhappy fact is that it’s necessary to raise my taxes and the taxes of all upper-income Americans. (I do wish, however, that “upper income” started just a dollar above me.)
The sad truth of the last two two-term Republican presidents is that their economic premise, the key part of their economic game plan, simply has not done what it’s supposed to do.
That is, cutting taxes, especially on upper-income Americans, does not generate so much economic activity that it replaces all the lost I.R.S. take and then some. At least those have been the results so far.
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