Steve Forbes
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| Steve Forbes | |
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| Born | July 18, 1947 |
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| Occupation | Publisher |
Malcolm Stevenson "Steve" Forbes Jr. (born July 18, 1947), is the son of Malcolm Forbes and the editor-in-chief of business magazine Forbes as well as president and chief executive officer of its publisher, Forbes Inc. He was a Republican candidate in the U.S. Presidential primaries in 1996[1] and 2000.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Personal life and education
Forbes was born in Morristown, New Jersey, the son of Roberta Remsen (née Laidlaw) and Malcolm Forbes.[2] He is married to Sabina Beekman, and they have five daughters. Daughter Moira was named Publisher of ForbesLife Executive Women in 2007. Just as his children would do, Forbes attended Far Hills Country Day School. He graduated cum laude in 1966 from Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts, and was in the Princeton class of 1970.[3]
In 1996, years after the death of his father, he changed the name credited to him on the Forbes magazine masthead from Malcolm S. Forbes Jr. to the name he had been known as throughout childhood, Steve Forbes.
He served as an occasional guest host on the show History's Business on the History Channel.
[edit] Political career and views
In 1993, Steve Forbes was an adviser to the campaign of his childhood friend, Christine Todd Whitman.[4] He helped craft Whitman's plan for a 30 percent cut in New Jersey's income tax over three years, and this plan proved to be a major factor in her defeat of incumbent Governor James Florio.[5][6] After her election, Whitman proposed these tax cuts and they were enacted into law. Forbes made an issue of his role in these New Jersey tax cuts in his subsequent campaigns for the presidency.
Forbes entered the Republican primaries for President of the United States in 1996 and 2000, primarily running on a campaign to establish a flat income tax. He also supported the ideas of re-introducing 4 1/2% mortgages and term limits in 1996, but dropped both in 2000 (as they were minor planks in his overall platform).
When Forbes ran for president in 1996 and 2000, he sold some of his Forbes Inc. voting shares to other family members to help finance his run. He did not come close to securing the Republican nomination, despite winning the Arizona and Delaware Primaries in 1996 and getting some significant shares of the vote in other primaries. In polls, voters were attracted to his passion to simplify the tax code, but found his idiosyncratic personal manner unbecoming a president.[citation needed]After dropping out early in the 2000 primary season, he returned to heading the magazine and company.
Major issues Forbes supports include free trade, health savings accounts, and allowing people to opt out 75% of Social Security payroll taxes into Personal Retirement Accounts (PRAs). He supports traditional Republican Party policies such as downsizing government agencies to balance the budget, opposition to pollution control, opposition to gun control and drug legalization, tough crime laws and support for the death penalty, and school vouchers. In terms of foreign policy, he called for a "US not UN foreign policy" (which is composed of anti-IMF sentiments, pro-Israeli sentiment, opposition to Most Favored Nation status for the People's Republic of China, and anti-UN sentiment.)
His flat tax plan has changed slightly. In 1996 he supported a flat tax of 17% on all personal and corporate earned income (unearned income such as capital gains, pensions, inheritance, and savings would be exempt.) However, he supported keeping the first $33,000 of income exempt. In 2000 he maintained the same plan, but instead of each person receiving an exemption of $33,000, it more closely resembled the Armey Plan (Forbes's version called for a $13,000 per adult and $5,000 per dependent deduction). Observers noted that Forbes stood to save substantial amounts in taxes if such a proposal was enacted.[citation needed] Forbes himself is quite wealthy, with a net worth upwards of $430 million.[1] In response to this criticism, Forbes promised in his 2000 campaign to exempt himself from the benefits of the flat tax.
In his 2000 campaign, Forbes professed his support for social conservatism along with his supply-side economics. Despite holding opposite positions in 1996, for the 2000 campaign, Forbes announced he was adamantly opposed to abortion and supported prayer in public schools. The previous year Forbes had issued a statement saying he would no longer donate money to Princeton University due to its hiring of philosopher Peter Singer, who views personhood as being limited to 'sentient' beings and therefore considers some disabled people and all infants to lack this status. Steve Forbes was one of the signers of the Statement of Principles of Project for the New American Century (PNAC) on June 3, 1997.
In December 2006, he joined the board of directors of the grassroots advocacy organization FreedomWorks. On March 28, 2007, Forbes joined Rudolph Giuliani's campaign for the 2008 presidential election, serving as a National Co-Chair and Senior Policy Advisor.[7] He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Heritage Foundation, an influential Washington, D.C.-based public policy research institute.[8]
He is a frequent panelist on the television program Forbes on Fox, which also features members of the Forbes magazine staff, and is shown Saturday mornings on Fox News Channel at 11:00 AM EST.
Forbes has been a resident of Far Hills, New Jersey, but is currently residing in Greenwich, Connecticut.[9]
[edit] Political donations
For donations from 1999 to 2006, Forbes was the fourth most important contributor of political funds in America, with 15 donations totalling over $7 Million [10]
[edit] Saturday Night Live
On April 10th, 1996 the band Rage Against the Machine was scheduled to perform two songs on the NBC comedy variety show Saturday Night Live. The show was hosted that night by Steve Forbes. According to an unidentified RATM member, "RATM wanted to stand in sharp juxtaposition to a billionaire telling jokes and promoting his flat tax by making our own statement."
To this end, the band hung two upside-down American flags from their amplifiers. Seconds before they took the stage to perform "Bulls on Parade", SNL and NBC sent stagehands in to pull the flags down. The inverted flags, says Morello, represented:
“ Our contention that American democracy is inverted when what passes for democracy is an electoral choice between two representatives of the privileged class. America's freedom of expression is inverted when you're free to say anything you want to say until it upsets a corporate sponsor. Finally, this was our way of expressing our opinion of the show's host, Steve Forbes. ”
The band's first attempt to hang the flags during a pre-telecast rehearsal on Thursday were frustrated by SNL's producers, who "demanded that we take the flags down," according to Morello, "They said the sponsors would be upset, and that because Steve Forbes was on, they had to run a 'tighter' show." SNL also told the band it would mute objectionable lyrics in "Bullet in the Head" (which was supposed to be RATM's second song), and insisted that the song be bleeped in the studio because Forbes had friends and family there.
On the night of the show, following the removal of the flags during the first performance, the band was approached by SNL and NBC officials and ordered to immediately leave the building. Upon hearing this, RATM bassist Commerford reportedly stormed Forbes' dressing room, throwing shreds from one of the torn down flags.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Mitt Romney to report financial assets of at least $190 million Fox News
- ^ Milestones - TIME
- ^ Bumiller, Elisabeth. "POLITICS: ON THE TRAIL;In Political Quest, Forbes Runs in Shadow of Father", The New York Times, February 11, 1996. Accessed December 11, 2007. "Christine Todd, Mr. Forbes's childhood friend from the Far Hills Country Day school, would grow up to become Governor Whitman.... His son went off to the Brooks School in North Andover, Mass., then on to Princeton, Malcolm Forbes's alma mater."
- ^ CNN Transcript - Crossfire: Christie Todd Whitman Makes the Case for Tolerance in the GOP - January 20, 2000
- ^ Welfare states - benefits of tax cuts | National Review | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ Nowhere Girl | National Review | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ http://www.joinrudy2008.com/news/pr/79/
- ^ [Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees, heritage.org
- ^ Peterson, Iver. "ON POLITICS; It's Not Too Late or Irrational For Mr. Forbes to Aim Lower", The New York Times, January 16, 2000. Accessed December 11, 2007. "Even Governor Whitman, his Far Hills neighbor and longtime acquaintance, was a county freeholder before she tried for the Senate and then went on to win the governor's race."
- ^ Campaignmoney.com on Forbes' donations
[edit] External links
- Steve Forbes at Forbes
- http://www.4president.org/brochures/steveforbes1996brochure.htm
- http://www.4president.tv/
- http://www.wordwiz72.com/flattax.html
- Forbes throws weight behind Giuliani
- Steve Forbes Joins Team Rudy as National Co-Chair and Senior Policy Advisor
- RightWeb profile of Steve Forbes
- SourceWatch profile of Steve Forbes
- Profile: Steve Forbes, Center for Cooperative Research.
- "Capitalist Tool II: Defending Dynamism", interview with Reason by Virginia Postrel and Charles Oliver
- "Confront Iran to bring oil prices down" April 2006 from $70+ to $15 per barrel
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