Count Ray Griggs as one of the few Hollywood conservatives who isn’t afraid to speak up and, in his case, even put his views up on the silver screen. In his view, the country needs to return to President Ronald Reagan’s values.
Griggs advances his arguments in the documentary, “I Want Your Money,” which he produced and directed.
The film, which is slated for release next month, critiques President Barack Obama’s economic policies, with commentary from Steve Forbes of Forbes magazine, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore, and other conservative luminaries.
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Griggs contrasts Obama to Reagan, who he said “had a similar crisis to Obama, but he didn’t spend his way out of it. He found a different way to create growth again, which is what we need now.”
What the country needs is a return to Reagan’s values, Griggs said in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV. “Control spending, promote small business growth and give tax incentives.”
The economic crisis inspired Griggs to make his movie. “We can end up losing a lot of freedom that a lot of people in this country take for granted,” he said.
“I have great freedom in creating my company and being a filmmaker, and I want to pass those along to my kids. With the amount of debt we’re accumulating, I don’t know if they’ll be there in the future.”
Griggs doesn’t view himself as the right’s answer to Michael Moore. “I’m not really a documentary filmmaker, I’m more a science fiction and fantasy filmmaker,” Griggs said.
“I just felt, on a personal level, I had to do something. I feel every citizen has to do something to take control back of our government. It’s our government, yet they don’t listen to us.”
Getting a crew wasn’t easy in liberal-dominated Hollywood, where Griggs says conservatives feel a need to muffle their views to protect their careers.
“It’s kind of a hush-hush thing in Hollywood,” Griggs told Newsmax.TV. “Conservatives don’t really come out and say they’re conservative, because they’re worried about their careers.”
The people he originally found to work as crew for his movie said they would do it for a paycheck but didn’t want their name to appear in the credits.
“So I found a crew that believed in it . . . It was a struggle to get crew for the project,” Griggs said. “You do see in Hollywood people are afraid to come out and say I like Reagan, I believe in conservatism and capitalism.”
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