The growth of our out of control Federal Government tracks directly to the implementation of the income tax.
As long as you give politicians a potentially unlimited income stream, as the income tax does, they will find ways to spend it.
We can cut and cut and cut but the spending always comes back. Reagan cut the most of any modern President and the spending came back plus more.
Until you address the revenue side, Federal Spending is not going to be controlled no matter how much any President cuts.
You have to limit the Congress’s ability to spend and borrow money (Cut, Cap, and Tax) but then you also need to limit it’s revenue stream. Cain’s 9-9-9 does that. Other Candidates should come up with their own ideas on how to accomplices the same goal. The current tax does is both corrupt and inefficient.
The genius of Cain’s 9-9-9 is, for the 1st time, there is a leading Presidential Candidate putting out a plan to limit Fed revenue. The key components is the sale tax. By spreading a lower over all tax burden to all Americans he creates an insurmountable problem for any future tax raises.
How do you convince people to give you more taxes when they personally know they will pay for the tax hike?
See the trick now is Congress can always disguise any tax hike by hiding it inside the overly complex tax code. By tweaking around the edges with the tax code they can gradually and systematically raise taxes with virtually no one noticing.
9-9-9 eliminates that ability to “tinker around the edges” of a mind numbingly complex tax code
1) How’s he going to get around the Constitutional issues (the Sixteenth Amendment authorizing Congress to tax income and no amendment authorizing Congress to tax sales)?
2) A sales tax has looked better to many than an income tax because, among other things, supposedly it would be a one-time-only tax for something, less wasteful than having to file income tax every year, and less intrusive than having the IRS policing your income or returns. However, many critics say that the 9% sales tax will apply through the entire supply chain, taxing the same thing over and over again as value is added and as it moves from producer through distribution and retail. What’s in here to guarantee only retail sales are taxed?
3) If somehow he’s able to get around the Constitutional issues and the value-added issues, the plan has another problem - the "tyranny of the status quo" which takes over about 100 days after the new guy is in office. Why not just get a bill passed immediately after taking office that features time-phased implementation such as: 1) immediately lowering both income and sales taxes to 9% as proposed (NO OTHER TAXES) and 2) mandating BOTH a gradual and complete phase-out of income tax while creating and phasing in a sales tax? Otherwise he risks getting us bogged down midstream with a sales tax without having passed a bill abolishing the income tax - a Socialists dream.
4) He needs spending cut plans to sell a huge and essential tax cut. He might want to take a page out of Reagan's book and hire the best business minds to come to DC and noodle this and then come up with a sound proposal - shouldn't be difficult to see tremendous slashes in pure government waste.
I hope Mr. Cain is listening and can make necessary adjustments to his proposals even if it means adjusting the catchy phrase “999” itself. The point is tax cuts are most essential, followed by huge cut in government spending, and ABOLISHING OBAMACARE.
Exactly!
I think all these micro-analyses (so to speak) are useful. I even see the value in the “what about me” rants, mainly because there is a political as well as economic reality to consider here.
But, good grief. At some point it becomes like analyzing and analyzing and analying the side effects of a chemotherapy drug without ever remembering to look up and go, oh yeah, BUT IT SAVES THE PATIENT’S LIFE!
Again, I’m not suggesting we not mash hard on this proposal from here on out. I’m just saying that we also have to make sure the debate does not lose track of the larger picture: that our freedom is at stake and if we don’t get major tax reform in the next cycle, it’s likely GAME OVER for the producers v. the takers in this country.