Ben Stein

Opinion Source Information:

From the American Spectator:

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Opinion Source Information:

From the New York Post:

There has been pork-barrel politics since there has been politics, but the scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before - and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation.

Further, no one can be sure that we are not already at the trough of the recession - such that this money will be spent mostly after the recovery is well under way.

How long until the debt incurred under this program is so immense that it causes a downgrade in the nation's sovereign debt? What happens to us then?

This has been a punch in the solar plexus to the kind of responsible, far-seeing, mature government processes that are needed to protect America. This is more than pork-barrel - this is a coup for the constituencies of the party in power and against the idea of a responsible government itself. A bleak day.

Unfortunately, it is only the latest in a long series of such days stretching across decades of rule by both parties, to the point where truly responsible
 

Opinion Source Information:

From NYTimes:

Right now, I think it’s obvious that the next step for policy is the issuance of guarantees for banks that make loans. This should get credit flowing again, almost instantly. For some reason, Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson don’t see it, but maybe they are right and I am wrong. We are all just people. Humans are very small when compared with the complexity and difficulty of life.

Opinion Source Information:

Conditions have greatly deteriorated since April, and Stein appears to have changed his stance:

Yahoo Finance

That means there is virtually — for all practical purposes -no limit to how stimulative fiscal and monetary policy can and should be.

In this situation, the governments that care about their citizens should and must have extremely expansive policies. That would include running very large deficits — which we are doing, not even mentioning tax hikes until the situation is stabilized, and possibly cutting taxes as a temporary measure. Public works projects, tax rebates, even to people who paid no taxes, extensions of unemployment insurance payments — all of these are necessary.
 

Opinion Source Information:

Larry King Live

BEN STEIN, ECONOMIST, COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK TIMES," SUPPORTS MCCAIN: Well, I would look at it from an entirely different perspective. And that is, the white vote will be divided between Barack Obama and Senator McCain and Ralph Nader and the black vote will go almost 100 percent almost go to Barack Obama and that's will decide the election and give the election to Barack Obama.

Now, if there's race that's going to be a factor, it will be much more on the part of the black voter than on the white voter. I'm not quite sure why it should matter. I don't think race should be a relevant consideration for either racial group or any racial group.

But I think that will decide the election. A hundred -- 98 percent of the black vote will go to Obama, something like 47 or 46 or 42 percent of the white vote will go to him and he'll win.