Ben Stein, the iconic actor who played the economics teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, is not shy about expressing his opinions. Stein, an author, economist, lawyer and former aide to President Richard Nixon, delivered a wide-ranging keynote address at the Washington Policy Center’s 2009 Annual Dinner Tuesday night in Seattle.
No admirer of the Obama administration's drive to expand the scope of government, Stein declared, "The Obama administration is about social control. People in the White House are control freaks. They want to control you."
On the current business climate: “If you build a new plant to manufacture paint, [the administration is] going to hit you so hard with [taxes] that you won’t know what hit you. If you build any kind of enterprise, they’re going to make your life miserable unless you hold down your head and hide.”
On the economy: “The money supply virtually doubled within a space of less than a year. Nothing like that’s happened before. It still hasn’t worked to restore the economy.”
On health care: “Somewhere between 70 percent and 80 percent of all people are happy with their health care. Take the poorest people in this country and give them money to buy health insurance. Don’t screw up everyone else’s relationship with his doctor and hospital.”
"The end goal is to maintain our freedom," said Stein as he concluded his speech.
Prior to Stein’s address, Stephen Moore, the Wall Street Journal’s senior economic writer and the former president of the Club for Growth, kicked off the evening with a well-received speech of his own.
"I really believe that the next eight weeks are the most crucial weeks in our country at any time that we've seen in 30 years," warned Moore. "We face the health care bill, the cap-and-trade bill, the union card check issue and a huge budget."
Among Moore’s observations: “Everything that we have done in the last year in Washington, [D.C.,] to deal with our economic crisis is exactly the wrong thing. We were promised 3 million jobs, but we’ve lost 3.5 million jobs since the stimulus.”
Moore believes it would have been preferable to have suspended the income tax during the recession, thus creating more jobs, and calls for an 18 percent flat tax with no deductions coupled with an immediate 20 percent cut in every federal agency.
On health care, Moore calls for medical malpractice reform, Health Savings Accounts and allowing individuals to purchase insurance across state lines.
"This generation has a great cause," concluded Moore. "We need to be able to say that we were the generation that saved America from socialism."
For more on the dinner, visit http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/
