Ben Stein's Diary/Set for Life
Stein, Benjamin J.
Set for Life by Benjamin I. Stein Sunday New Orleans. I'm sitting up here on the stage of a huge meeting room at a hotel next to the Saint Dome or the SuperDome or something like that. There's a...
...Gay Patlen was there, still blond and beautiful, and still the best dancer in the class...
...Every time yours truly asks (in a friendly, helpful tone) why the lawyers think they have no duty to obey the law, the lawyers tell me I'm naive, foolish, crazy, or being absurd...
...The kids are ostracized and no one will talk to them if they don't work...
...I'll hurt myself...
...Wardrobe was particularly charming...
...The FY 1991 deficit would have been almost 20 percent higher without the Social Security payroll tax...
...For my part, I'm reluctant to leave at all...
...They note that entitlements now account for half the total federal budget, up from one-tenth thirty years ago...
...Then Frank talked about how difficult human relationships were...
...Where that comes from is incredibly mysterious...
...From this I exempt my old Dad, who is an economist who knows quite a lot about money...
...he asked...
...Wednesday Afugitive day here in Los Angeles...
...Karl O'Lessker is professor of public and environmental affairs at Indiana University and a senior editor of The American Spectator...
...My pal Peter and I took Mr...
...He was being asked about how upsetting it was to the black students to have been near the riots last April...
...Sandpoint, Idaho...
...She looked so frighteningly healthy it embarrassed me to mention how early it was or how cold...
...I immediately went to the food table and fed myself things that will kill me: bacon, eggs, toast, even a banana...
...Everyone on the set was laughing...
...Why don't you rent an American car...
...No one is less supportive of law than lawyers...
...Maybe it's already here...
...Lea Thompson, the star, was almost mindblowingly kind to me...
...I asked...
...John Hughes said that I could ad-lib my lines, and that was also a good big shot of paradise...
...Get me out of here...
...Peter agreed...
...Two-thirds of the budget, I as President never get to took at, never get to touch...
...Daughter of Gene...
...call...
...He's a major-league Republican, as worried about the direction of America as you or I. When the snippy actress saw us talking politics, she suddenly became friendly, too...
...The panel is about ethics on Wall Street...
...Please don't make me leave...
...The others are rushing like mad to get out the door, since this is their daily grind...
...This is my first time doing a cartoon.The studio is off in the middle of nowhere east of Echo Park, in an area that's hard to find and somewhat anonymous even when you get there...
...Well, I don't like it," Tommy said...
...The fishing was done off a tiny raft in a beaver pond in Peter's back yard...
...As soon as I got to the set, I knew...
...Tom, as I call him, had grown up in Singapore, where his father worked for a commodities firm...
...I'm getting to hate them myself, and I am one...
...Behind me sat Swifty Lazar...
...This is part of my basic schema of reality, a little bit of which goes like this: Benjamin J. Stein is a writer, lawyer, economist, and actor living in Malibu, California...
...Now he's a lawyer in Palm Beach...
...Mark my words...
...The lawyers who represent real-life defendants or potential defendants are basically saying that if they had extremely good reason to think that their clients had been doing insider trading, they would not notify the law...
...For yet another thing, a lot of these people are sensible...
...It really doesn't scare them to go to prison...
...I mean screaming...
...Still, every last one of us is desperately happy to be here...
...It was swell...
...Is there any hope for most of them...
...No one hates war as much as soldiers...
...Picture Mr...
...There are mailmen, policemen, firemen, lawyers, doctors, Social Security workers, wives who don't work, even a few retired people...
...There's a football game going on inside and we can occasionally hear the sound of thunderous cheers...
...After we checked into our very modest hotel, which is a good kind because it's occupied mainly by the world's most polite people, Canadians, and western Canadians at that, God's gift to the world, we went off with my pal Peter to see a local football game...
...Hmmm...
...All told, OASDHI trust funds in 1991 collected $377.6 billion in taxes and interest and paid out $344.4 billion in benefits and expenses, thus decreasing the deficit by $33.2 billion, or 12.4 percent...
...I'll cry...
...They look happy...
...Frightened faces...
...My long-time best friend from youth, Barry Walker, sat next to me for hours...
...I slept for about two hours before I had to do any real acting...
...I asked Tom what Singapore would do with lazy, rebellious, sullen, violent kids...
...10 At the second presidential debate on October 15, George Bush got flustered with a question on the budget and used the occasion to lash out at the way entitlements are budgeted: "I believe we need to control the growth of mandatory spending .. . that's the main growing thing in this budget...
...I play Mrs...
...It was still and cool and clear...
...I flew up this afternoon with little Mr...
...I know this doesn't add to the charm of life, but it's true...
...That's their lives...
...Great stuff...
...One Bud Light coming up," she smiled...
...Demagoguing the Deficit by Karl O'Lessker 54 The American Spectator December 1992...
...What I love is that these dopes are being paid for this by the people of Los Angeles and the people of California,and by taxpayers everywhere...
...Then half a dozen more asked and then two dozen and I was starting to feel nervous...
...Sunday you can't quite imagine how beautiful a fall morning on a lake in Northern Idaho is...
...Once they realize that this was a legitimate political uprising, they feel a lot better...
...If there is, I don't see what it is," he said...
...It's a small part, but I am prostrate with gratitude to have it...
...52 The American Spectator December 102 I left, with Tommy, and with Amber's promise to baby-sit Tommy, so that I could stare at the lake and meditate...
...The parents can be severely punished if the kids aren't doing their work...
...Someone is looking after you every minute...
...When public school teachers who once knew better words now only use lies and inciting words and thumb their nose, anything goes...
...What's amazing is that any of them, any of them at all, actually go to work in the morning, save money, and eventually get an apartment and have a life...
...My old comrade in arms, John Coyne, lives here...
...Happy-looking kids in the stands milled about and laughed...
...I want to stay here forever, too...
...For another thing, they're amazingly friendly...
...Tommy slid...
...This makes sense to me...
...Frank and Peter drank $200-per-bottle Montrachet...
...But it's still great because I get to have my face on the camera...
...As I ate my food, Peter asked the waitress for a Bud Light...
...On the other hand, this is Louisiana, not Los Angeles...
...I won't bore you with what I said...
...Why don't you rent a Ford, Daddy...
...It is true that the cost of entitlements has grown over the last decade, from $357 billion in FY 1982 (the first Reagan budget) to $687 billion in FY 1992—an increase of 192 percent during a period when the Consumer Price Index rose 48 percent...
...It's a semi-warehouse, semi–down at the heels residential area very far from Spago and Morton's...
...It's a free country...
...Oh, good...
...Rather, Peter took him fishing...
...No one knows less about human nature than psychologists...
...They're used to very tough surroundings...
...Set life is paradise...
...This car smells like cigarettes," Tommy said...
...One does a growling dog better than a dog...
...It was dusk, and I stopped at Lake Cocolalla to photograph the sun setting over the lake...
...By the way, I'm never leaving the set...
...Broasted chicken...
...Salad and a vegetable...
...Life seemed pretty bleak...
...I got into a righteous fight with a woman at our table over abortion...
...Same goes for the others...
...But there is variance among the programs: Social Security and Medicare more than doubled, from $199 billion to $400 billion, while the cost of other programs (e.g., Aid to Families with Dependent Children, for example) has barely kept up with inflation...
...In a word, he's hilarious...
...They just want to live sensibly and pass whatever they know on to their kids...
...As we argued, I looked about the room...
...Perfect fishing...
...I met them all for dinner at a miserable Italian place downtown...
...It's not just good...
...Basically, the lawyers would try to protect the managers who had broken the law, and not the stockholders and investors who pay their bills...
...But it also means a society that's amazingly safe and productive, and where young people rarely hurt anyone...
...This really helps the kids to get organized around the uprising and feel better about themselves...
...No one has worse hair than hair stylists...
...Then I went back to my trailer and put on Mozart's Requiem...
...A few tables away was Tony Curtis...
...I'm in Chicago, Illinois, to do a small part in the movie version of Dennis the Menace...
...Then everyone was pals...
...As we rehearsed, a woman actor who shall go unnamed was slightly condescending to me...
...It's getting to be real easy to see why people hate lawyers...
...I still feel the embers of the crush I had on her thirty years ago...
...The meal was unremarkable except for the boyfriend, who had a truly electrifying perspective on society...
...I've been thinking about this, and the whole time I Was in Singapore, I don't remember any kids who were bad kids...
...Human resources, income security, veterans, agriculture, and housing programs accounted for outlays of $289.5 billion in FY 1991-46 percent of entitlement spending and 108 percent of that year's deficit...
...Saturday 1 'm in Bethesda, Maryland, at the Holiday Inn on Wisconsin Avenue, for the thirtieth reunion of my Montgomery Blair High School class...
...Conservatives who call for a reduction in benefits must offer a more compelling rationale than lumping Social Security in with all other entitlements, or labeling it "welfare," for it's important to distinguish between types of entitlements...
...It's raining...
...I work with kids who have never known anything but violence and abuse," he said...
...Picture honking geese lying off the lip of the lake, old people walking happily on the grass by the shore, and a cool breeze coming down The American Spectator December 1992 53 from Canada ruffling the waters, but only barely...
...So does her boyfriend, whom I will call Tom...
...In my car, heading west to more familiar climes, I turned on a talk show...
...Wednesday Dinner at Spago for my pal Sid's birthday...
...Barry was the first real friend I had after grade school...
...No one is more serious and less funny than comedians...
...Crazy faces...
...These people are also worried about the way the schools are going, the way crime is going, the sad fact that the safe life we had in 1962 is only a memory that their kids will not know—unless maybe they move to Idaho...
...Picture frame houses on streets lined with oaks and maples turning yellow and gold...
...Disability, though riddled with problems, took in $2.3 billion more than it spent last year, and will continue to do so for several more years...
...Back in paradise...
...Three men and a woman...
...Delicious...
...So does my niece, Emily, a solid braino at the University of Chicago...
...Plus, I'm tired...
...No one cares less about stockholders than their management...
...He can imitate a cat swallowing a hair ball...
...He was a good boy...
...Whatever criticisms may be leveled against the system, aggravating the deficit problem isn't one of them...
...Then there's hair and make-up and wardrobe...
...She hugged me and told me I was a star...
...My own version of paradise...
...During FY 1991 alone the Social Security trust fund took in $53.7 billion more in taxes and interest than it paid out in benefits...
...It's another little bit of paradise...
...Peter caught a tiny brook trout for him, and everything was copacetic...
...One Michelob," she said proudly...
...It's swell...
...John Coyne had a good question about whether kids with gunswho are 18 years old should be called "children," especially after they have just killed someone in a robbery...
...Good-bye to philosophical musings...
...We went out to dinner at a nearby German restaurant...
...yes, a.m...
...Then we do it again, and then we go home...
...I wondered what the hell I was doing up at that hour...
...Tommy even threw the fish back...
...The goal of social organization there is to make people learn and work and save, not to allow people to hurt themselves...
...A light ripple brushed the surface of the lake...
...No one knows less about money than economists...
...They looked happy, even giddy...
...I hate that smell...
...Can't some of this extra cash be used to pay the deficit down...
...Time to sleep.---+ The American Spectator December 1992 51 Monday / t was dark and rainy when the van came to get me...
...Then from Portland to Spokane it was gorgeous again, and we could see it all perfectly...
...I DON'T EVER WANT TO HAVE TO LEAVE THE SET...
...A really good sign...
...An extremely deferential white man was talking to someone called "Brother Green...
...No one dresses worse than clothing designers...
...Perfect by my side...
...Then we talked about Bush and Clinton...
...Maybe crushes are the only things that last...
...If they do, they get hit really, really hard...
...There are four other performers besides yours truly...
...I had ad-libbed the whole scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and that had been the best day of my life, so I was loaded for bear...
...I'm off to be in a cartoon called "Animaniacs...
...Friday H a! I'm back on the gravy train...
...Nor would the lawyers notify the stockholders of the companies whose executives had broken the law...
...We rented a Toyota Camry at the airport...
...As near as I could figure it, "Brother Green" was a teacher at a public school in downtown Los Angeles...
...The whole society makes young people work and be disciplined...
...We call them 'the uprising.' We explain that these weren't criminals, or people who might hurt them, but rather people who were trying to gain the legitimate rights of African-Americans, and that this was a political act, and not a criminal act...
...The thing is," said Brother Green (as best I can reconstruct it), "we don't call them riots...
...There are lawyers for securities dealers, brokers, and underwriters on the panel, and there are consumer advocates on the panel, too...
...People are allowed to smoke," I said...
...Daddy," Tommy asked, "is a Toyota a Japanese car ?" "I think so," I said...
...There's a P.A...
...A moment later she returned and plunked down a Michelob Gold on the table in front of Peter...
...She remembered (with some slight prodding) that we had worked together on The Wild Life, the sequel to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and she was the best friend I had that day...
...They ask about my work, about Hollywood, about Trixie...
...Not one kind face, I thought...
...I was very happy to see him...
...The reason I'm on this stage is that I'm at a meeting of the wonderful North American Society of Securities Administrators...
...It was run by a beautiful colleen named Brigitte Kelly...
...That's a good sign...
...John Hughes came onto the set and we talked about the election...
...The discussion is getting fairly heated, and it's taken an interesting turn...
...A sweet girl named Amber came up to me and asked me for my autograph...
...A race war in our time...
...I don't want to ever die...
...Then he drank more wine...
...He didn't...
...Is that America...
...It was all food for thought, until I phoned the A.D...
...Frank talked about being kidnapped and about how terrible life had gotten in America...
...They wouldn't be allowed to be sullen and lazy," he said...
...Saturday / t's raining here in Northern Idaho...
...Mitchell's boss, a mean-spirited, monotonous grouchy pompous fool...
...I stood on the shore and worried that Tommy might fall in...
...Then, off through the drizzle to the mountain lair of Frank S., fabulously successful advertising producer...
...Tom's views were fascinating...
...The writer/producer is my pal and savior, John Hughes...
...Seven dollars...
...It's coming...
...They like a quiet life...
...Getting hit, being mistreated, being abandoned...
...Perfect running on the grass, scooping up leaves and tossing them into the air...
...The remaining entitlement programs—Medicare, Disability, and Social Security, collectively known as OASDHI—make up half of all entitlements and pay their own way through dedicated payroll taxes...
...Smirking faces...
...The guests stared at me and a teenage boy started to ask for my autograph, but Frank shooed him away...
...After all, this is set life again, and I love the attention and the money and everything else that goes with not being alone so much of the time...
...I'm not, but I watched her dance for a long time...
...to follow your every move...
...Some are government income transfers out of general revenues, e.g., farm subsidies and welfare...
...Each one of them can do all kinds of clever voice imitations...
...Finally, the people in the control room left and then the janitors started to come in, so I guessed I would have to leave...
...In the crisp night, two teams hurled themselves at each other...
...A few tables away also sat a table of pornography folks, including Al Goldstein...
...on Dennis and found I had a 5:45 am...
...It would have to come from a society entirely different from what ours is now...
...They love their kids...
...The interviewer then asked an Asian teacher about her pupils' response...
...Well, next time, my boy," I said...
...Then he had come to Chicago for school...
...You bet," I said...
...Plus, it's cold...
...A huge portion...
...That means a lot of repressed people...
...They don't expect to be rich...
...Well, these cars are very reliable, and plus I think they're actually made in Tennessee...
...He wanted to look out at the scenery, but we were blocked by a big ugly jet engine for part of the way...
...But it's just a light, pleasant drizzle, offering a glimpse of a damper world, and I like it...
...We all sat in Frank's huge living room and looked out at the lake far below...
...0 f these, Medicare outlays will exceed income in calendar year 1997—but for now Medicare runs a surplus, and helps balance the budget...
...He also clambered on the custom-made furniture...
...Now he was out, and he was working at a "home" for homeless children...
...Peter and Frank drank wine...
...Picture him sliding down a gleaming steel slide while Amber stands guard...
...Her husband, a policeman and also a Blair grad, is a great dancer, too...
...Sunday 0 h, this is really great, great stuff...
...For one thing, everyone here looks normal...
...Bush struck a chord, for if there is one article of faith that unites budget analysts it is that "entitlements"—authorized by prior mandate and not subject to the normal appropriations process—are the largest single cause of our deficit woes...
...Maybe it's real thunder...
...I play—surprise, surprise—a man with a boring voice who accosts the main players at a party and bores them to death...
...Frank laughed, and Tommy tried to kick me under the table...
...We got another Camry that did not smell of cigarettes, and off we went to Sandpoint...
...A Ford is definitely an American car...
...We each sit in a little booth made of slim partitions and read our parts into a microphone...
...Not one contented face...
...Peter didn't say anything...
...Tommy slid on the South American hardwood floor...
...She also said the kids felt better if they knew they were in the midst of a revolution, and not in some criminal setting...
...Social Security is by far the most important of these programs, and current projections made by the Social Security Administration (SSA) predict a $1-trillion surplus by the end of the century, which will peak at $5.5 trillion in 2025...
Vol. 25 • December 1992 • No. 12
