Conservative Economist Ben Stein Says Trump May Make Him Vote Democrat for First Time

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:04 pm

Donald Trump’s plan to cut corporate taxes has already taken a brutal hit from conservative economist Ben Stein, who said,

“I don’t think Mr. Trump’s plan is going to work very well…the evidence that tax cuts stimulate business in any kind of meaningful way…is extremely poor to put it mildly.”

Now Stein has gone after Trump over the reality star’s negative stance on free trade, saying, “I think at the end of the first term of a Trump presidency, we would wish he had taken a very different tack on trade.”

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Watch courtesy of CNN Money:

“The idea of starting trade wars is a very, very bad idea. I don’t know where he got that idea from. I don’t know where he got the idea that you can just somehow drive a big pickup truck into Mexico and bring back all the jobs. It’s just not true.”

No indeed, particularly since some of the jobs Trump would have to bring back in his pickup truck would be those devoted to making his clothing line. He’d have to drive his pickup truck to China to bring back the rest of them, a neat trick.

Stein went on to say,

“The general misconception about the trade deals is that we are somehow giving away jobs that American workers want and we’re shipping the jobs to China or to Mexico. That isn’t true. We have full employment in this country. We have a labor shortage in this country. We have many, many jobs going unfilled because there aren’t enough Americans to take the jobs.

“As to the manufacturing jobs that have gone overseas, it is a shame for any American to lose a manufacturing job, but on the other hand, every American is a consumer. Not every American is a manufacturing employee. So the great majority of Americans are benefited by these trade deals, not harmed, and we should really get it through our head that free trade is one of the best advances in human prosperity there’s ever been.”

Keep in mind Stein supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which he calls a “very good trade deal,” and he isn’t happy that his former Yale law classmate Hillary Clinton has backed away from it, having previously allowed that she “knows something” about it [economics].”

Even so, the prospect of a Trump presidency has him far more alarmed. Stein told The Guardian in June, “I don’t think Trump knows a goddamn thing about economics.”

This has Stein wavering. He says, “I’ve never voted for a Democrat,” but allowed that “it could be different this time.”

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.