Cain's 9/9/9 plan

Cain doesn't have an actual campaign. He is in the process of a book tour and running for the nomination as a second job. Which, I admit, is admirable.
 
But, it will be exciting if he does. Even more exciting if he changes his name to "Abel" right before.
Exciting, yes, but not in the way Republicans would like. It would be wire to wire.
 
First: We really need someone competent, like Jerhico or Intregral, to figure out just what kind or revenue the system would really generate. The US federal government is averaging something like 22% of GDP in spending (more when the economy is weak, less when it is better), and that simply isn't going to go down in the long run. So any tax proposal will have to generate that much revenue to make the least lick of sense.

Your thoughts have summoned me from hell. Or grad school. Can't tell the difference most days. :D

Ummm, where to start.

Phase 1 would be to tax wage income, corporate income, and purchases each by 9%.

The big shift from current policy, and what might make this revenue-neutral (haven't checked the math) is that he would complete eliminate all deductions, credits, &c in the wage income tax (except the charitable giving deduction!). Now in real life, there's no way he'd get rid of all the upper-middle-class deductions but let's take him seriously for a moment.

The current tax code forfeits $1 trillion in revenue through deductions, credits and subsidies. If he reclaimed all of that, it'd prolly push the plan into revenue-neutral territory.

The first phase would also eliminate payroll taxes, so I have no idea what Cain would do to Social Security. It's kind of a black hole.

Phase 2 would be a national sales tax. It is a bad idea because if you really, truly want to tax consumption you wouldn't do it at point-of-sale, you'd do it in a way that looks an whole lot like the current income tax.

A consumption tax at point of sale is (1) hard to make proportional in cross-section, which people get awfully upset about and (2) is a political minefield because you have to grant exemptions at the item level and not income level.

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If U3 unemployment remains above 8%, or if it's trending sideways from July through October 2012, it's difficult to see how Obama could keep the Presidency.

Empirically, voters pay a whole lot of attention (implicity) to the rate of change of the unemployment rate. If the rate is trending down, it's good for the incumbent; if it's trending up, that's the signal to start packing your bags. If it's trending sideways, that's not a whole lot better than trending up.
 
No, its because my accounting fees would decrease and I would be understand taxes better.

That's not a reason to like it. I haven't done the math, but considering how low these taxes are, it is highly unlikely that they would be able to raise the same revenue as taxes are now. That means a lot of services would be eliminated.
 
To be honest, I feel like I can't take Cain seriously after his Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan comment.
 
That's not a reason to like it. I haven't done the math, but considering how low these taxes are, it is highly unlikely that they would be able to raise the same revenue as taxes are now. That means a lot of services would be eliminated.
That was covered in the article I posted earlier. It was estimated his scheme would decrease federal revenue by approximately 17% compared to what it is now.

Cain wants to use Other People's Money, e.g. future generations, to make his friends even richer. That racket to not pay their bills has never fallen out of favor with so many "fiscal conservatives".
 
..and why would a "lawyer" be any better?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a large proportion of your representitives have a "legal" background? It seems a pretty narrow group to draw from.

You're point is a good one. It is a problem that so many of our political leaders are lawyers. But it's not universal. The problem with addressing it though is that businesspeople have been bad leaders as a whole in recent years. So no gain there.



Your thoughts have summoned me from hell. Or grad school. Can't tell the difference most days. :D

Ummm, where to start.

Phase 1 would be to tax wage income, corporate income, and purchases each by 9%.

The big shift from current policy, and what might make this revenue-neutral (haven't checked the math) is that he would complete eliminate all deductions, credits, &c in the wage income tax (except the charitable giving deduction!). Now in real life, there's no way he'd get rid of all the upper-middle-class deductions but let's take him seriously for a moment.

The current tax code forfeits $1 trillion in revenue through deductions, credits and subsidies. If he reclaimed all of that, it'd prolly push the plan into revenue-neutral territory.

The first phase would also eliminate payroll taxes, so I have no idea what Cain would do to Social Security. It's kind of a black hole.

Phase 2 would be a national sales tax. It is a bad idea because if you really, truly want to tax consumption you wouldn't do it at point-of-sale, you'd do it in a way that looks an whole lot like the current income tax.

A consumption tax at point of sale is (1) hard to make proportional in cross-section, which people get awfully upset about and (2) is a political minefield because you have to grant exemptions at the item level and not income level.

--

If U3 unemployment remains above 8%, or if it's trending sideways from July through October 2012, it's difficult to see how Obama could keep the Presidency.

Empirically, voters pay a whole lot of attention (implicity) to the rate of change of the unemployment rate. If the rate is trending down, it's good for the incumbent; if it's trending up, that's the signal to start packing your bags. If it's trending sideways, that's not a whole lot better than trending up.


So there's some theoretical possibility of his plan generating enough revenue, but not certain?

The economy certainly is against Obama. But the Republicans still have to generate a candidate people give a damn about.
 
The economy certainly is against Obama. But the Republicans still have to generate a candidate people give a damn about.

That directly contradicts what the Republican establishment is saying. In their version the election is going to be a thumbs up/down on Obama and everything is fine if the GOP candidate doesn't scare people.

These are looking for Romney. I've yet to meet anyone who wants him. If you go to watch a debate with a group of GOPers, you'll see everyone dash to the bathroom or the fridge when a question is addressed to him.

I think you might be right though. And it would probably hurt the GOP in congressional races if he is the nominee because there would absolutely be no coatails to grab.A big GOP win would have to be bottom up.

Perry remains the only likely runner to be able to beat Obama in an improving economy because he is a real conservative and the only real baggage he has is the inability to think and talk at the same time.

There has been a lot of bias against Perry so far. He made a comment about Helicopter Ben and was slammed pretty hard but Newt is even tougher and wants to jail Dodd and Frank and you don't here the allegations that he is out of the mainstream as was said of Perry.

The big issue right now is in moving the primaries up before some of the runners fall out is a big help to Romney who is going to win NH and NV while the conservative vote is cut up 4 or 5 ways in IW and SC. Florida will be huge.
 
Instead of the complicated income tax system, it mandates a national sales tax.

taxing sales means that all taxes are going to be tranfered to the consumer and that bussnessman pais no taxes. what I think that should be done is a replacement of all taxes to just one in the income.
 
That directly contradicts what the Republican establishment is saying. In their version the election is going to be a thumbs up/down on Obama and everything is fine if the GOP candidate doesn't scare people.

These are looking for Romney. I've yet to meet anyone who wants him. If you go to watch a debate with a group of GOPers, you'll see everyone dash to the bathroom or the fridge when a question is addressed to him.

I think you might be right though. And it would probably hurt the GOP in congressional races if he is the nominee because there would absolutely be no coatails to grab.A big GOP win would have to be bottom up.

Perry remains the only likely runner to be able to beat Obama in an improving economy because he is a real conservative and the only real baggage he has is the inability to think and talk at the same time.

There has been a lot of bias against Perry so far. He made a comment about Helicopter Ben and was slammed pretty hard but Newt is even tougher and wants to jail Dodd and Frank and you don't here the allegations that he is out of the mainstream as was said of Perry.

The big issue right now is in moving the primaries up before some of the runners fall out is a big help to Romney who is going to win NH and NV while the conservative vote is cut up 4 or 5 ways in IW and SC. Florida will be huge.

Killing potentially innocent people and blocking inquiry into their innocence looks bad for Perry.
 
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