Tim Allen: 'The Left Wants to Tell Everybody' What to Do

WASHINGTON – Actor Tim Allen told PJM “the left” should “stop telling” people what to do, adding, “no one is stopping you from paying more taxes.”

Allen stars on the ABC show Last Man Standing, in which he plays a conservative father who owns a sporting goods store and often pokes fun at the Democratic Party. Allen was asked if he writes some of the material himself.

“I’m more of an anarchist because I’m a stand-up comic. I don’t like anybody telling me what to do and, lately, the left wants to tell everybody – it’s the ‘we all know this, you should, you should.’ Stop telling me what to do, you go do it. You want to support stuff that the government should stay out of? You go do it. No one is stopping you from paying more taxes. Then, that’s the attitude I get,” he told PJM after he left the Creative Coalition’s Inaugural Gala.

“You see my act on the road or in concert – I don’t do political stuff. I do anarchist stuff. I like making everybody laugh. Jokes should be – President Trump should laugh at it, so should Hillary – that’s the balance I like; the personal stuff is different,” he added.

Allen was likely referring to Pay.gov, which allows every American to make a donation to the Treasury Department at any time to reduce the nation’s debt.

Actors Robert De Niro and Alec Baldwin addressed an anti-Trump protest in New York City on the eve of the inauguration, encouraging the crowd to resist Trump’s policies.

“Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and Mike Pence, and all these people that are part of the Trump administration, they think that you are going to lay down. Are you going to lie down? The one thing they don’t realize is New Yorkers never lay down,” Baldwin said. “Are you going to fight? Are we going to have 100 days of resistance?”

Allen offered his reaction to celebrities urging opposition to Trump’s agenda.

“It’s a free country. These dudes can say whatever they want. I am a comedian. It’s different. I’m a political comedian that says stuff, but it’s usually about men and women and good and bad and rich and poor – that’s my avenue and I’m able to do that,” he said. “God bless America – people come to see me but opinions are like butts, everybody’s got one. I say to these guys, God bless them for doing that, it’s their opinion, it’s no more valid or less valid than anybody else’s.”

Allen shared his opinion of Trump’s executive order that made Obamacare repeal an official policy and directed federal agencies to ease the enforcement of the law’s rules and regulations.

“To me, I’m a more moderate guy, I’d come up with a plan to fix it but again, I’m not in politics, I haven’t seen all the details,” he said.

The Trump administration is reportedly considering eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts as part of its plan to cut government spending. In FY2016, the NEA’s budget was $148 million. Dean Norris from Breaking Bad hopes the administration does not following through with the proposal.

“I think that’s horrible. Those guys, they don’t pay for Hollywood movies. Those are the guys who bring arts to kids in Arkansas and Missouri and Nebraska and those kids, if they don’t have that kind of seed funding, aren’t going to get exposure to that. And I think that’s really bad for our country and I think that’s important. We hope they don’t do that,” Norris said.

“We hope they continue to fund the NEA. It’s a rounding error on some of these guys’ budgets, so it’s not going to make any difference to our deficit if they defund the NEA – but it would make a lot of difference to kids who depend on that for their arts educations,” he added.

Tim Daly from Madame Secretary echoed Norris’ view.

“The consequence of defunding the NEA would probably not affect Washington or Los Angeles or New York or Chicago or Miami, but small cities all over the United States would have the small bit of arts they now have taken out of their communities,” he said. “Children and other people would not have access to arts programs they participate in or be able to experience arts.”