Ben Stein Quotes
Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don't pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.
Stein, Ben. "The Real Tax Story." Yahoo! Finance, 23 Feb. 2007.
This became known as the Buffet Principle—that the very rich should not pay a lower tax rate than the workers who make far less money than they do. President Barack Obama used this principle by name in calling for the 2011 Jobs Act which would eliminate some of the loopholes and exemptions by which the rich could avoid some or much or their tax obligation.
He was one of the richest men in America, who thought that the tax burden on the very wealthy was too low given the needs of the nation and the ability of the wealty to pay..
This is the most articulate historical statement of the modern conservative mantra regarding taxes. However, one change has taken place. The words “necessarily” and “often” tend to be left out of the more modern ideological statements. Mellon’s original statement has never really had any politicians or economists who disagreed. Politicians of all economic persuasions have generally accepted the Mellon statement but the extreme conservatives’ creed is that a lowering of taxes always produces more revenue and a tax increase will inevitably lead to greater tax revenue—a position which Mellon never took. Mellon however was very solicitous of the wealthy, felt the welfare of the nation depended on their prosperity, and was a strong advocate of what was later called ‘trickle down’ economics {628592}.
This was a typical argument in the 2012 battle between President Obama and the Republican conservatives. However, this was written 35 years earlier, when the exact same issue was polarizing politicians. The idea for taxing the rich more to reduce the deficit has been around since there was a Federal deficit. On most occasions the rich had enough political clout to avoid additional taxes for them and get the general public to pay instead of them. However, there have been times where they have not been able to avoid increased taxes. The New Deal lead by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Obama administration in 2013 were two such exceptions.
Benjamin Jeremy Stein is an American writer, lawyer, actor, comedian, and commentator on political and economic issues. He began his career as a speechwriter for U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford before entering the entertainment field as an actor, comedian, and game show host. He is best known on screen as the economics teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as the host of Win Ben Stein's Money, and as Dr. Arthur Neuman in The Mask and Son of the Mask. Stein co-wrote and starred in the 2008 documentary Expelled, which portrays intelligent design creationism as if it were a scientifically valid alternative to Darwinian evolution and alleges a scientific conspiracy against those promoting intelligent design in laboratories and classrooms. Stein is the son of economist and writer Herbert Stein, who worked at the White House under President Nixon. As a character actor he is well known for his droning, monotonous delivery. In comedy, he is known for his deadpan delivery.
