A FEW MONTHS AGO, SOMEONE POSTED THAT BEN STEIN

attacked trickle-down economics on Cavuto's show but I never found a transcript. The Raw Story has the video clip of Stein telling O'Reilly he's full of shit and LexisNexis¹ has the transcript:

O'REILLY: Have continued to get better? Good grief. What exactly is getting better, Mr. President? I mean, come on. Most Americans well understand the problem. In fact a recent Gallup poll says 71 percent of us believe the President is doing a poor job managing the economy. Just 26 percent think he is doing a good job and some of them are communists -- that's just a joke for those of you taking notes for George Soros.

But still, we have guys like billionaire Warren Buffet -- no relation to Jimmy -- who wants more taxes on wealthy Americans and investors, writing in the "New York Times" Mr. Buffet laments -- laments he is not paying enough to the feds because his capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, not 35 percent as straight income is. Of course increasing the cap gains tax would inhibit investment and further damage the American people.

Buffet has to know that but, still, clings to the erroneous belief that further taxing the rich is an economic solution. Perhaps like his namesake Jimmy, old Warren is spending some time in Margaritaville.

And that's the memo.

Now for the "Top Story" tonight reaction: joining us from Salt Lake City, Wayne Rogers, an investor and an entrepreneur; and from Los Angeles, economist, Ben Stein who is also an actor at times.

All right Mr. Stein. Now, you know that -- you know that everything I said in that memo was true, correct?

BEN STEIN, ECONOMIST: Absolutely not. I'd -- I would say almost every part of it is wrong except for the fact that I think it's better if he's on vacation because he works terribly hard and he deserves a vacation --

[snip]

O'REILLY: Right if you take, then you're helping the recession. You're feeding the flames of it?

STEIN: That's not true.

O'REILLY: Sure it is.

STEIN: That isn't true. I mean, there is no correlation -- I'm going to call you Mr. O'Reilly -- there is no correlation Mr. O'Reilly between tax rates on millionaires and people above that level, billionaires and the growth of the economy. 

Ben Stein also made the same comments to War Whore Laura Ingraham, who was the sub host for O'Reilly on June 29, 2011, also from LexisNexis:

INGRAHAM: No, no -- do you -- do you not agree that when you tax the rich you ultimately end up over time reducing much of the revenues that would come in for their spending that they make, their hiring and companies where they hire. I mean a lot of this also is -- small business owners.

STEIN: No, I don't agree with that -- I -- I don't agree with you with all due respect.
[snip]
INGRAHAM: I'm not shouting. I'm actually just trying to ask a question. In December, the President and the Democrats decided to extend the Bush tax cuts. They understood that during a failing economy, a weak economy, a weak recovery you couldn't raise taxes.

By all accounts, the economy is growing at a slower rate than it was even in quarters last year, at about two percent this next quarter, 1.9 percent last quarter. If it wasn't good to do in December, why is it good to do now?

STEIN: There is no data, my friend, correlating lower tax rates for the rich with higher economic growth. 

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: No you have to cut spending too, right?

STEIN: -- in the entire century, the 20th century when we had very high rates of tax on the rich. I'm not saying that's a great idea and I don't look forward to higher rates to tax on the rich. But you cannot say that higher rates on the rich are a bad thing in terms of economic growth. That's just -- the data just isn't there, Laura.

¹Fox News Network
August 22, 2011 Monday
SHOW: THE O'REILLY FACTOR 8:00 PM EST
Failed Economic Vision?; Gadhafi Rule Collapsing
BYLINE: Shepard Smith, Bill O'Reilly, Juan Williams, Mary Katharine Ham
GUESTS: Ben Stein, Wayne Rogers, Reva Bhalla
SECTION: NEWS; Domestic
LENGTH: 4463 words