Posted on 11/06/2011 6:11:14 PM PST by SeekAndFind
We've steered away from this question for some time now, since so many other current events have seized the news cycle, but Herman Cain had a fairly long history of pontificating on the radio and writing editorial pieces before he began his current run for the presidency. When you generate that much material, you're bound to leave behind a few nuggets for your opponents to find. The case in point today, however, if a fairly glaring one. Highlighted by Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway, it’s noted that Mr. Cain may have written passionately about an idea which runs directly against one of the cornerstones of his platform.
Ive noted before that Herman Cains history as a radio talk show host, public speaker, and op-ed columnist was likely to come back and bite him at some point. You simply cannot engage in a long career of speaking off the top of your head on various issues without saying something at some point that is going to annoy someone, or prove to be somewhat embarrassing to you should you ever decide to run for public office…
On November 21st, 2010 in a column at website call The New Voice, Herman Cain wrote this about a proposal made by the Simpson-Bowles Commission
The piece in question seems fairly damning in terms of the political dog and pony show. It has to do with the idea of a national sales tax, which as I’m sure you will recall, is one leg of his 9-9-9 plan.
The worst idea is a proposed national sales tax, which is a disguised VAT (value added tax) on top of everything we already pay in federal taxes…
First, we have a spending problem in Washington, D.C. not a revenue problem. The Commission claims their goal is to reduce the deficits by $4 trillion over the next decade. The task force says its plan would save $6 trillion by 2020. Its sort of like dueling promises that would never happen, because when has a proposed cut in Washington D.C. ever produced the intended savings over 10 years? Never!
Even worse is reason number two: In every country that has established a VAT with the promise of reducing their national debt, the VAT has eventually gone up or expanded on top of the existing tax structure. After discovering many of the tax grenades in the recently passed health care deform bill, which is already driving costs up and access down, it would be real easy for an overzealous bureaucrat to insert the language in the legislation national retail and wholesale tax.
It goes on from there in great detail, but I’ll leave it to you to read for yourselves. Essentially, it certainly appears to undermine one of the major aspects of his 9-9-9 plan. (Not coincidentally, the same one which his primary opponents, including both Perry and Romney have criticized at great length during the early debates.) In fact, the argument he makes in this editorial regarding the government eventually raising the tax is precisely the point his critics are making today. And this isn’t some dusty, musty piece from ancient history. It’s from last year. This not only calls into question Cain’s own commitment to his tax reform plan, but puts in play a “flip-flop” issue, which one certainly doesn’t need when running against Romney for frontrunner status.
This is only one item from the vast library of recorded radio shows and writings by Herman Cain. The media hasn’t had nearly enough time to dredge through the entire stash since he achieved frontrunner status. For the present they seem content to settle for the sexual harassment and campaign finance allegations which currently dominate the news. If Cain survives those with strong poll numbers, look for more nuggets like this to emerge over time.
There is a difference between a VAT and a National Sales Tax.
I wish they would google it and understand the difference.
It is a big improvement. Just don’t let the fools stress you out. Take care.
999 replaces:
Income
Payroll
Death
Corporate
Investment Dividends
We currently pay embedded taxes - 22% of everything we buy - because of high corporate taxes. Current corporate rates are up to 35%. Cain’s plan REPLACES that with 9%.
Therefore those embedded taxes will decrease significantly, but there will still be residue, because businesses are not going from 35% to 0%, they are going to 9%. Then with the transition to Fair Tax, then corporate taxes go away completely.
Typical. The writer is using a boneheaded misinterpretation of Cain's words as a strawman.
Marty60, you need to sit down and plug in your numbers to these calculators. All this plan is doing is taking taxes you don’t see and replacing them with lower rate taxes that are visible.
Income: http://raisingcain2012.wordpress.com/about/
Sales Tax: http://www.999calculator.net
999 reduces taxes, eliminates much of the hidden built-in tax (social security and payroll taxes, for example) and removes them from the cost structure which will lower the cost of all products and services manufactured, produced or delivered in America (or exported), spur the economy, and help put our people back to work. It doesn’t double taxes.
You are right. Cain's 999 plan closes many tax revenue streams. That is why establishment politicians are anti-Cain.
Does it really matter? as long as he is for lower taxes that is all I care about in a presidential candidate when it comes to taxes.
I agree. It was but old lies never die of late especially among some ‘conservatives’.
I posted it in post 14 as well
Every conservative should want to reduce taxes.
Our tax structure is too complex, everything costs more than should and it reduces our competitiveness abroad.
Simplifying it as Cain has proposed is only the first step. But its an important one.
Too many conservatives want to get every thing done at once. That is guaranteed to fail.
The enemy of the good is insistence on the perfect. The Left has gotten everything it wanted incrementally.
We need to learn to do the same. Ronald Reagan said about conservatives who wanted 100%, it isn’t possible. I’ll take what I can get now and fight for the rest later.
Yes indeed - obviously Cain was responding specifically to the proposal in the Commission's report, not the idea of a retail sales tax. We also went through this nonsense a month or so ago - now it is being recycled again as though it is something new.
Yes - here we go again. At least it can be said many here are into recycling.
Fire with fire.
See #55, #54, #52
It cant be more obvious.
Ed Morrisey like many airhead conservatives does not appear to grasp the fact we can’t change our entire tax system overnight.
If we can’t do it, let’s have the Left continue to confiscate ever increasing amounts of our income! Who can argue with brilliant logic like that?
I maintain this is a first step. Its not the last one. But even if this is all we attain, our tax system will be fairer, simpler and lower in cost than the one we have today.
And that is real reform worth fighting for.
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