Ben Stein is a Dolt

Maybe I need to create a new “Dolts” category for the blog. It’s a word I’m using a lot these days.

Latest-greatest is about Ben Stein, who you may remember as the ultra-boring teacher in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, or the ultra-boring guy on the Visene commercials, or perhaps the very trivially clever guy on Win Ben Stein’s Money, or maybe as a former Nixon speech writer, or mayhap as the writer and host of the anti-evolution drivel Expelled.

Ben Stein has a problem. People aren’t just winning his money these days — they’re stealing it. Or they’re punishing him for having it. Or so he’d have you believe: Ben Stein: Raising My Taxes Is a Punishment

I am a fairly upper income taxpayer. Not anything even remotely close to sports stars or movie stars or financial big boys. But I am above the level Mr. Obama says makes me rich.

If you are speaking of a household income of $250K or over, that puts you in the top 1.5% of Americans, Ben (in 2005, at least).  I’d say that’s an indicator that most every American would consider you rich.

So, in the midst of a severe recession, I am to have my taxes raised dramatically.

Dramatically.  Dramatically! DRAMATICALLY!

Ben Stein puts more emotion into a single word than into his whole acting career.

Let’s put this into perspective, Ben.

1. Nobody is “raising” your taxes.
2. Your taxes are returning to where they were when George W. Bush ran some temporary tax cuts through Congress.
3. The GOP-led Congress intentionally put a 10-year expiration date on those cuts so that they wouldn’t have to account for the overall deficit impact as required by law.  They’re temporary, see?  The GOP kicked the can down the road.
4. The increased tax brackets will be a whopping increase from 33% to 36% and 35% to 39% for the very top bracket.  That is, um, undramatic.
5. That’s also the marginal tax rate.  You aren’t paying an extra 3-4% on every dollar earned … just the dollars earned over that threshold.
6. The tax rates will still be at historic lows. Lower than during Eisenhower. Lower than during Nixon. Lower than during Reagan.

I am not quite sure what my sin is.

Your sin is being a dolt. And greedy. And selfish.  Wait, that’s three sins.  Well, doltishness isn’t a sin. Putting on little puppy dog eyes and pretending to be a victim, though, is.

I worked for almost every dollar I have, except for a small percentage my parents left me by virtue of hard work and Spartan living, and most of that was taken by the federal estate tax.

Wow, really? Because, y’know, that only really kicks in when you get in the multi-million dollar range.  Last year, for example, people inheriting less than $3.5 million (99.75% of all Americans) were not at all affected by the estate tax. But maybe the estate tax was calculated differently back then.

You do get credit for not calling it the “death tax,” Ben.

I have a hell of a lot less than I did before the stock market and real estate market crashes.

Sounds like some bad investments, Ben.  But, then, a lot of folks were hurt by those economic crises.  Why, some were hurt so bad that they no longer have to worry about the top marginal tax rates any more.

I didn’t get a bailout or any part of a stimulus program, except for traffic jams as the roads in Beverly Hills got worked on for the 10th time in the last 10 years (or so it seems).

Sounds like something to take up with the City Council, Ben.  Doesn’t really have anything to do with federal taxes.

I pay my income taxes, and after them and the commissions I pay my agent, I am left with about 35 cents for every dollar I earn.

Really?  That’s remarkable. The top marginal tax rate is 35% (set to return to 39%).  We’ll assume you’re in that category, which means you’re earning at least $373K.  Of course, you’re not paying 35% on all of that, only on that particular bracket, but we’ll even give you the doubt there.  Your agent gets 25%, let’s say … why, that comes to about 35% left.  (I’ve never had an agent, Ben, so I don’t know if the 25% is off of gross or net, or whether it’s deductable or not.  We’ll assume not, just to garner you the most sympathy.)

So because you are apparently earning like crazy (so that the vast majority of your income is at the highest rate), and you work in a profession where a quarter of your income goes to someone else, and you aren’t taking advantage of the many, many exemptions and deductions that are in the federal tax code … you are only left with 35 cents on each the (many, many) dollars you bring in. If we assume, for example, that you earn $1 million in income each you, you are left, after taxes, with only $350K to live on.  If we do some very bad tax math, that will go down to $346K.

It’s all a horrible, dramatic punishment, Ben.  Why, I can hear Madame Lafarge’s knitting needles even as we speak!

I own some real estate in California and Idaho and the District of Columbia. Naturally, I pay property tax, supposedly mostly to educate local children. Not far from me, the city of Los Angeles just spent about $600 million to build the most lavish school in America for about 4,000 children. That’s my money. Naturally, I had no say in it. My wife and I have no children in public schools and only did for about eighteen months long ago. I still pay my school tax ever year.

Because, of course, why would you possibly have any interest in educated children in the many places where you own real estate?  Public Education: scourge of a free society!

I am not asking for any tears. I live a great life, have a fabulous wife, a great son and daughter-in-law, four wonderful, furry dogs and six cats, all adopted. I have more than enough to eat.

But you’re being punished! For your sins! Dramatically! But you ask us to shed no tears (and, if we do, Visene helps get the red out!).

But what I don’t get is this: There is no known economic theory under which raising my taxes in the midst of a severe recession will help the economy recover. It isn’t part of any well known monetarist or Keynesian theory. So if it does no good to raise our taxes, I assume we are being punished.

Um, actually, there are any number of economic theories (and economist to tout them) under which government spending — spending enabled by those tax dollars — is critical in a recovery from a severe recession.

And, of course, the biggest nearly-trillion-dollar bit of tax money available is letting those top marginal tax brackets slip back up to where they were before the GOP voted to temporarily drop them a bit.

But for what? I don’t own slaves. I employ a lot of people full- and part-time and they are all happy with their pay. When charity calls, I almost always write out a check.

You really need to work on taking those tax deductions, then.

I don’t have a yacht or ponies or a plane. My wife doesn’t wear a tiara. I don’t gamble.

I’ll bet she wears a good, honest, Republican cloth coat, too.

I really have to wonder, Ben, are you just being disingenuous? Or do you really not understand?

What did I do wrong? I know I have often lost my temper with my wife and the cats, but that’s not a crime, yet. I tried to be successful, which is what I thought I was supposed to do. When did it turn out that was a crime to be punished? Maybe when the economy recovers, raising my taxes makes sense, but for now, it’s just punishment, and I can’t figure out what for.

Believe it or not, Ben — it’s not all about you.  It’s not that Those People think you’ve done something wrong, or despicable. They really don’t think you beat your wife, or run slaves in the back forty.  Those People aren’t really punishing you for Expelled.  Heck, there are a lot of liberal “Hollywood Types” — and hedge fund managers, and progressive cause donaters — who will be dramatically impacted by this, too.

Oh, and Ben, I’m sure you know it’s never the right time to “raise taxes” — if the economy is bad, then it will make it worse.  If the economy is good, why tinker with success?  It’s like that old joke about the hillbilly and the leaky roof. Except the hillbilly in this case can pay someone to hold an umbrella over his head.

No, you are not being punished. But neither are you being rewarded with a new tax cut extension.  Because “to those whom much is given, much is asked.”

I really don’t believe the puppy-dog eyes about your impending poverty and … no, wait, you didn’t want “tears.”  Then let’s say that the “injustice” of your not getting a tax cut extension is trivial compared to the “injustice” of folks who have worked just as hard as you and who are still suffering in poverty or joblessness.  Or the injustice of your fellow cohorts in the  “cut taxes on the rich!” being the same ones who have been bellowing for cutting debt and restoring fiscal responsibility, refusing to vote for job-creating and populace-supporting government measures because they aren’t paid for (even when they are), while demanding that tax cuts for the top earners (themselves included) be kept low and incur another trillion dollars in debt.

The bottom line, Ben, is that your country needs you.  And it needs your money.  Whether it’s for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, crumbling infrastructure at home, or, heck, keeping body and soul together for millions of Americans who aren’t worrying about top tax brackets, taking a few percent more off the amount you earn over $250K is, as you put it, not something that deserves “tears.”

Now, if you want to argue that there’s lots of waste or unnecessary spending in the federal government, Ben, we can have that conversation.  If you can point out $800 billion in programs to cut to make up for extending your temporary tax cut, Ben, and get a national consensus on that, that’s cool, too.  If you want to even argue that nobody’s temporary cuts should be extended, and that anyone who’s paying income taxes at the federal level ought to let their rates slip back upward slightly again, that’s a legitimate policy consideration.

But simply whining that you’re being “punished” for some bewildering cause only makes you come across like a dolt, Ben. Or, if that’s too unbelievable, than it comes across like a petulant kid kvetching that it’s not “fair” that just because he got a new Astro Blaster 2000 for a birthday gift and the other kids didn’t, that he still has to share with them.

Which interpretation do you prefer, Ben?

(Ben, guess what? I really don’t like paying taxes, either. There’s a lot of things I could be doing with that money.  Guess what again? I pay them anyway. It’s one of the (strikingly low) prices we pay for living in the country we do, and enjoying the many benefits it provides.  Suck it up.)