What do you think about Herman Cain's 999 tax plan?

I can’t stop thinking about pizza when I hear 9 9 9. Nine pizzas, nine toppings, nine bucks each.

To me, it sounds like something we could pursue but surely there are details to be learned and things to be considered. I don’t want my income taxed, but I guess 9% is better than the 30 something percent we’ve got now.

I like Ron Paul’s plan better.

@silverfly Great comparative… SHDD

The pizza thing was said on the last Republican debate.

@JLeslie Yeah, I saw that… Cain is pretty funny, that’s for sure. He and Newt can be pretty entertaining and don’t make me totally sick to my stomach.

Don’t believe in regressive taxation. A flat income tax is very regressive. A sales tax is even more regressive. Not only that, it discourages spending. A business tax cut… doesn’t get the money into the right hands.

Money needs to be in consumer hands. We need to stimulate spending. It is only by increasing demand that we can stimulate the economy. His plan would concentrate more money in the hands of the wealthy, who simply can not spend enough. They prefer to invest the money. But they have all kinds of excess capital already that they aren’t investing because no one is buying anything because no one has jobs and no one has money to spend.

Cain’s plan is an absolute disaster. Of course, it is simple, and the American Republican voter is fairly simple, and this is about all they can understand, I guess. God, I hope they put Cain up against Obama. Even if he were to get elected, there’s no way he could get Congress to go along. Not even business would go along. His idea is dead on arrival, as they say.

It’s really about how it’s implemented but on the surface no, no, and no. Flat income tax overburdens anyone making below average salary, sales tax does the same, and a flat business tax creates the same imbalance for corporations as it does for individuals. The certainty it creates helps however, but any plan can create certainty if it’s properly adhered to, this one’s just catchy marketing.

However, I freely admit I know nothing about it beyond the phrase and what little I’ve had time to read this morning.

It’s just another distraction to let Romney skate on by. At least Huntsman had the balls to call him out on how he likes to do business.

The story shouldnt be about the plan itself, but the way he reacted when asked who helped him write it (Richard Lowrie from Wells Fargo) and who would lead his economic team(I know but Im not telling). How’s that for transparency?

@silverfly Newt makes me sick to my stomach. Bill Clinton once said about Newt, “he knows better,” and I believe Clinton. Newt plays the Republican audience like a violin, it shows no integrity to me. Huntsman is probably the most honest of all of them, honest meaning willing to state his mind no matter how it plays to the base of the party. Actually, I think Bachmann is honest to, but just narrow and unaware of how she sounds to the majority of the nation. Cain maybe is honest too, although maybe not transparent as @SquirrelEStuff pointed out.

@JLeslie I’m going with Paul on the honesty part. :) Newt is good at playing the crowd – I don’t know if he’s got much else going for him. Clinton was even better.

@silverfly Paul on honesty, him too of course. I don’t think of Clinton as playing the crowd, I don’t think he purposely worked a crowd playing on their ignorance, but he was a good speaker.

@JLeslie Yeah, I guess you’re right. I guess I’m just being cynical again. I dislike most politicians.

It is amazing that anyone is dumb enough to believe this is a workable policy.

I seriously doubt Cain is dumb enough to believe it is a workable policy.

Clearly, no thought has gone into making this plan. It is a tax on the poorly paid to subsidise the rich. If such a ‘plan’ were to be put into practise it would destabilise the country.

As long as there’s no loopholes for the rich to avoid paying it. And it covers government expenses. It sounds like a fair idea on the surface.

@Qingu Dear God…...I actually agree with you!! No it is not workable.

@JLeslie I just have to disagree with you on Clinton working a crowd. i think the guy was (and is) a master of working the crowd. So good you never even know it. I’m not knocking him. Didnt matter whether I agreed with him or not. I loved to watch and hear him speak. He was about as good at it as Reagan.

@wundayatta the American Republican voter is fairly simple

Oh please!!! You’re talking about half the population here. Just like the Dems, there are smart ones and dumb ones and blatantly stupid ones. But making that statement puts you in the latter classification. Just on this. Otherwise, I think you’ re a great guy.

For once, Michelle Bachmann was right, the Devil is in the Details. Read Cain’s ((( Plan carefully. It calls for ending Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and Food Stamps. Instead, the elderly should go from church to church and door to door hoping to find someone who would give them the retirement income they already spent their lifetime labor paying for.

Do you want a 9% sales tax on everything you buy? Not unless your income is in the millions, and you need spend only a tiny fraction of it on purchases. And his plan exempts used homes but applies the 9% sales tax to new ones. That would effectively kill what’s left of the housing construction market in the US for good, saving us so much money by laying off all those greedy carpenters and bricklayers that are taking the money our poor, starving millionaires so desperately need. It seems all GOP jobs plans now revolve around how to eliminate more jobs and ship them offshore soe investors and corporate CEOs can reap ever greater profits.

It would be the greatest tax-cut windfall yet for the very wealthy, and the largest tax increase in history on the working poor. For the last 30 years, income and wealth disparity in the US has grown rapidly as the GOP and even bought off Democrats heaped loopholes for the rich into the tax code and voted to make a formerly progressive tax system ever more regressive. In the 1960s, the top 1% paid 70% on income over $250,000 a year. Today, the top 400 tax filers in the US pay an average of 21.4% om an average income of $227 million a year.. In that same time, total taxes for the working poor have gone up. Incomes for the top 1% have risen 300%. Incomes for the rest of us have stayed just about flat. For the bottom 60%, real income has fallen. And Cain wants to make the tax system FAR more regressive, which would turn the USA into a banana republic in the next 10 years.

His plan shows where the leadership of the GOP wants to take America.

Sounds kinda stupid, just headline grabing crap. No serious politician could ever subscribe to the fact that 999 tax was either just or workable.

@plethora Guilty as charged. And unrepentant, as well.

@ETpro Interesting numbers. I wonder what would happen to presidential races if the Congressional Budget Office had to analyze each finance proposal of all the candidates? Well, I guess we can trust that the opposing candidates will do the job for us.

@wundayatta I think they would be a whole lot more honest. But when the nation’s major problem is a crisis in demand-side economics, switching from a slightly (now) progressive tax system to a deeply regressive one is as wrong=-headed as you can get. I hope there are some talking heads out there who can put it in simple enough terms that frightened, math-deprived voters get it throuhg their heads what this guy is proposing.

I think it is really awesome that it is based on SimCity!