9-9-9 is a BAD idea.
As soon as the Democats got the House and Senate again, what is to stop them from making that 18-12-6.
You see, right now we have a heavy handed income tax. I don’t care how low you drop the income tax rate, but when you add the Federal sales tax, you have now given the US Central government an entirely new tax to abuse. What starts out as a 9% income tax and 9% sales tax, can be voted any day to a 30% income tax and a 12% sales tax.
No thank you. The only way I would accept a 9-9-9 plan is by a Constitutional Amendment which codifies that 9% rate in the amendment, with NO provision allowed for the increase of any of those rates, only their decrease.
Please don’t let the government add a sales tax to an income tax. They will eventually ream us between the two of them.
A constitutional amendment is a good idea to keep all three rates the same (no individual rate can be raised or lowered without raising or lowering the other rates), however I disagree on your premise that the rate can only go down, not up. (While we are at it we might as well throw in a balanced budget amendment too.)
First of all, the 9-9-9 plan, according to Cain, is a middle step to a pure ‘Fairtax’ plan that eliminates all taxes except a consumption tax. This just gets people used to the idea because it’s a radical departure from the thievery we are used to now. With that said, being able to raise or lower the rate is CRUCIAL to controlling how fast the economy moves as the rate (under this tax scheme) is directly proportional to economic growth. If economy is moving too fast and inflation is feared, the rate can be raised to slow the economy down. Likewise, if the economy growth is too slow, the rate can be lowered to speed things up.
Second, the tax rate (since it is completely transparent) now becomes effectively a feedback inhibition loop...meaning that it is effectively ‘self-limiting’. Not only would higher taxes be instantly felt by everyone but raising them too high would grind the economy to a halt (political suicide). The overall goal quickly becomes economic homeostasis, which is the rate settled upon that grows economy at a fair rate while not too fast where inflation becomes a problem.