Thursday, October 13, 2011

Cain to the Fore

The new darling of the Republicans for the next couple of weeks is Herman Cain. Cain replaces the last best great hope of the Republicans Rick Perry who replaced Donald Trump. Seems Republicans are having a problem figuring out who would be the best candidate to replace Obama. Romney continues to hold around 25 percent. He doesn’t seem to get much above that which doesn’t bode well for him.

Cain shot into the lead after Perry self destructed during the debates. It seems Mr. Perry can’t debate at all. I guess in the last one he essentially disappeared into the wood work.

Cain’s big point is the 9-9-9 plan which he says is simple and straight forward. It would be fair to everyone or so he says. The reality of the plan is something completely different. This would be a huge burden on the least well off who spend a larger percentage of their income they anyone else. I think the editorial in the Post today sums up the problem:

Even if it generated adequate revenue, Mr. Cain’s plan would do it on the backs of the least well-off — and to the benefit of the wealthiest taxpayers. The 47 percent of households that do not pay federal income tax because their earnings are too low would be subject to a new 9 percent tax on their income — plus the impact of the 9 percent sales tax, with no exceptions for spending on basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter.


f course the 9% sales tax would be above and beyond any state or local sales tax there is. For instance if I went and bought a pair of jeans in DC I’d be paying 9% national sales tax along with the 6% DC sales tax. An increase in the cost of the jeans of 15%. Now let’s start thinking about how much this would cost on larger items. Let’s say a washing machine or couch or a car or a house. Yes as far as I can tell since you are buying the house there would be a 9% sales tax on that as well. I’m sure that would be a big boost to the housing market.

1 comment:

Arthur Schenck said...

Well, as Amanda Terkel wrote on The Huffington Post, Herman Cain really got his plan from SimCity. As they put it on another site, "Yes, but what is his plan for when our country is attacked by a giant black spider-sphere…"