Syracuse, NY -- At a VIP cocktail reception for the insurance industry, Ben Stein, a small man dressed in a suit and gray sneakers, dominates the room.

The insurance VIPs attending the 50th annual Syracuse Insurance Day at the Oncenter today want to shake his hand or have their picture taken with him.

They might remember him as the dull economics teacher calling out “Bueller? Bueller” in the classic movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off .” Or as the host of the game show “Win Ben Stein’s Money.”

Most recently, Stein is better known as a CBS Sunday morning commentator on the economy and politics.

Stein, 65, has been all of those things and more. An economist and lawyer by training, he was a speech writer for President Richard M. Nixon, a poverty lawyer, a journalist, author of fiction and non-fiction books, an actor and public speaker.

In between the cocktail reception, lunch and speech, Stein took time out to speak with The Post-Standard.

PS: What do you plan to tell the 700 insurance agents at today's luncheon?

I’ll talk about how we got into the recession and what the faults are in government policy that allowed this to happen and talk about how important their work is to ensure people’s financial security in terms of selling insurance products and how difficult times are in other areas of the country including education.

And what can be done about that, if anything, and how lucky we are to have people who go out and put a uniform on and risk their lives, and sometimes lose their lives, to protect us.

PS: Wow that's a big topic!

It’s a big topic, a huge topic.

PS: What do you consider the most important issue facing the country now?

The country has so many problems it's difficult to know where to begin.

The recession combined with extreme partisanship in government, combined with the endless wars that don’t seem to be getting any better, they seem to be getting worse, is draining the nation of its vitality, and its energy, and its optimism. And that is a very dangerous thing.

This is a country built on optimism. If we lose our optimism, we’ve lost a lot.

PS: Is the partisanship bad because the public is less informed?



I think we've always been partisan. Partisanship now has taken the form that it's so unconstructive. It just doesn't do anything useful.

I hate to say this about my fellow Republicans, but I think, in Mr. Obama’s first two years, their obstructionism has been extremely excessive.

I’ve been a Republican all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever voted for a Democrat.

I’d like to the see the Republicans put up some alternatives and options and not just say “no” all the time.

That is not a constructive way to run the railroad.

I would like to see, on the other hand, Mr. Obama not fight business so much.

We have a situation where business is already very frightened. They are frightened and terrified by the recession. They are frightened and terrified by their own losses, and they’re even more frightened by the government yelling at them and threatening them.

PS: What is the government yelling at them about?

I’ll give you a couple of examples. When General Motors was in trouble, while it was on the road to bankruptcy, the government just called up Rick Wagoner, the chairman and said you’re out.

The government at that point didn’t have any stock in General Motors. The government didn’t have any voting rights in General Motors and didn’t have any legal authority in General Motors, they were just throwing their weight around.

At the time I was a columnist for the New York Times and I said what’s your legal authority for firing the chairman of General Motors. They said we don’t need any.

That to me sends a message that this government is out of control.

The health care bill is in many ways a good bill. It does allow people to have more insurance than they would otherwise have.

It also places a heavy mandate on employers and tells them if you’re going to hire it’s going to cost you a lot of money beyond salary and wages. That’s not a good message in a recession.

Almost certainly the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of this year. That’s going to raise taxes dramatically on upper-income taxpayers, the kind of people who are in the position to hire other people. That’s not a good idea either.

I’ve been calling for higher taxes forever on rich people, really rich people. Not the people that Mr. Obama says are rich people, which are not rich people. But not in a recession. You don’t raise taxes in a recession.

PS: So you would raise taxes on rich people?



On very, very rich people. I had dinner with ... what is today?



PS: Thursday.



Last Friday I had dinner with Warren Buffett and he said we should raise taxes on people who have $1 billion a year or more. Well, that's fine. They're not going to miss the money.

People who make $250,000 a year, a couple, that’s not rich. Maybe it’s rich in Onondaga County, but that’s not rich.

PS: If you could be known for one thing would you rather be known for your film career or for your career as an economist, as a social commentator?

The best most useful thing I ever did was to help expose and bust the Drexel-Milken junk bond fraud in the late 1980s and early 90s. I’m the most proudest of that.

I was writing about it for Barron's. I wrote about it in such detail that the government used it as the basis for its lawsuit against Drexel, Milken and the accountants to get a great, great, great deal of money back for the taxpayer. Billions.

We should stop soon my voice is getting raw and I have to speak soon.

PS: Is there anything you'd like to add?



I'm disappointed that I have not been able to get any great Syracuse pizza on this trip. I'll have to look forward to my next trip to get some.