Republicans are not allowed to blow up the government to get rid of a law, says commentator, writer, actor, and presidential speech writer Ben Stein.
“Shutting down the government is no way to run a railroad,” said Stein as keynote speaker during the E.G. Lassiter Lecture Series at the NAPSLO Annual Convention in San Diego.
“Let's stop being children and walking away from the sandbox with our toys, not wanting to play anymore,” continued Stein, a speech writer for Presidents Nixon and Ford.
Stein is certainly no fan of Obamacare. He made it a point to credit the Republican party with first coming up with the idea of universal healthcare in the early 1970s, and went on to say “few items have been more sloppily crafted” than President Obama's healthcare law.
“If you guys presented contracts with whole sections left blank, you wouldn't have those clients for very long,” he proclaimed. “[House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass the law to see what's in it. That is not a way to pass legislation.”
Instead of forcing a government shutdown, Republicans should let the law fail, as he predicts it will, then get the votes to get Republicans elected. After all, the law “can never be repealed, but it can be revised.”
Other Stein highlights:
- “I rather like President Obama. [Attorney General] Eric Holder is a very different matter.”
- “There's a lot of inequality in wealth. But that's the price we pay for being a free market society.”
- It is unfair 51 percent of Americans do not pay taxes, and have “no skin in the game.” Americans are “addicted to entitlements.”
- Stein said a lack of responsibility, a “stupefying materialism,” and a crisis in education are threatening America.
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