Did Ben Stein finally "get it"?

[annabanana]

In last Sunday's article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.

snip

This conversation keeps coming back to mind because, in the last couple of weeks, I have been on one television panel after another, talking about how questionable it is that the country is enjoying what economists call full employment while we are still running a federal budget deficit of roughly $434 billion for fiscal 2006 (not counting off-budget items like Social Security) and economists forecast that it will grow to $567 billion in fiscal 2010.

When I mentioned on these panels that we should consider all options for closing this gap — including raising taxes, particularly for the wealthiest people — I was met with several arguments by people who call themselves conservatives and free marketers.

He seems surprised, further down in the article, at how much resistance he's getting to what is (now) clear to him.

[swag]

1. He has been on this for a few months now.

Granted, it took him long enough.

You should have seen him destroy Cokespoon Kudlow on CNBC a couple weeks back.

[indepat]

4. Krudlow: a CNBC hour of pure fantasy, manure, propaganda and hogwash from, imho, one of the most

disingenuous and intellectually corrupt individuals to ever pass themselves off as a human being. That's just an opinion and I might be wrong, but I would nonetheless still despise Herr Krudlow. :rant:

[swag]

5. Well said.

[valerief]

2. How could anyone with half clue not know this? He didn't just get it.

He's just admitting it now.

[NewJeffCT]

3. Stein has been on TV

so, he must be one of those Hollywood liberals, like Arnold, Sonny Bono, Ron Silver, Fred "Gopher" Grandy, Fred Dalton Thompson, etc.

[Iris]

6. wow! Those are some really talented hollywood types you mentioned!

:sarcasm:

[acmejack]

8. Clear eye-wow.

edit; make that eye, singular in this case...

[sam sarrha]

7. the rich are favored by gOD and gOD doesnt like them being taxed