Matt Damon, My Other Hero!

Matt Damon's Not To Be Messed With
Actor Goes Off On Reporter, Cameraman

By Breeanna Hare, CNN

Posted: 10:37 am PDT August 3, 2011Updated: 11:37 am PDT August 3, 2011

(CNN) -- As Anderson Cooper pointed out on the Ridiculist Tuesday night, it's not the wisest idea to mess with Matt Damon.

The actor, whose mother is an educator, headed to Washington over the weekend to rally against the use of standardized testing as an indicator of how well teachers, students and schools are performing, and he's spoken out about a few other topics along the way.

He not only challenged a reporter who questioned a teacher's incentive to put in work on the job, but he also went after a cameraman who proposed that 10 percent of teachers are bad...and that perhaps 10 percent of people in any profession should rethink their careers. He wasn't done there, though.

Damon also responded to a question posed by a reporter about the debt ceiling debate.

"I'm so disgusted," the actor said. "I don't know what you do in the face of that kind of intransigence, so my heart does go out to the president, he's dealing with a lot."

Although Damon acknowledged the compromise wasn't easy, he continued, "The wealthy are paying less than they've paid at any time, certainly in my lifetime and probably in the last century. I don't know what they were paying in the Roaring '20s, but it's criminal that so little is asked of people who are getting so much. I don't mind paying more, I really don't mind paying more taxes. I'd rather pay more for taxes than cut Reading is Fundamental or Head Start, or some of these programs that are really helping kids. This is the greatest country in the world, is it that much worse if you pay 6 percent more in taxes? Give me a break. Look at what you get for it. You get to be American."

Are the wealthy who make $250,000 and above job creators? Damon doesn't think so.

"I didn't start a small business with my tax break, and I don't know anybody else who did. Everybody's socking their money away. Nobody started a business with their first tax cut...that just defies common sense. I was against those tax cuts, they were ridiculous. So little is asked of the upper class anyway, what percent of them or their kids are fighting in any of these wars?...If you walk down Fifth Avenue, there's no sense of shared sacrifice."