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People who have spent most of their life earning money, paying a high rate of income tax and saving money for retirement, will now get taxed 9% on their life savings as they spend it in their retirement.

It's not to hard to figure out that that is a problem.

If, like most retirees, they have been saving in their 401K properly with pre-tax dollars, the Cain plan may be the best thing that has happened to them.

Whatever its shortcomings, it's hard to deny that 999 rewards the wealth-producers and the employers, which is something this country has sorely been lacking. The "share" given current federal spending levels is 1 out of every 5 dollars, and the ones who are making up for the 47% who don't pay any income taxes are the ones who should otherwise be employing people and investing. That is flat-out wrong.

Granted, it does so partially by rebalancing the burden to others not in that group and that includes a lot of hard luck cases like seniors on fixed incomes, but there's an easy solution to lowering that burden: lower spending. And that's much easier if everyone has some skin in the game, IMO.

“Granted, it does so partially by rebalancing the burden to others not in that group and that includes a lot of hard luck cases like seniors on fixed incomes, but there’s an easy solution to lowering that burden: lower spending. And that’s much easier if everyone has some skin in the game, IMO.”

Especially when one is at the gas pump paying twice the sales tax, and buying food, paying twice the sales tax, and paying for clothes, at twice the taxes, and for school supplies, at twice the sales tax, and you can’t buy “used” food, or “used” fuel, or “used” toothpaste. Maybe you could buy a second hand fridge, stove, or toilet to avoid the extra sales tax, but would anyone want to? And what happens to all of the stores that are trying to sell first hand goods, not used? Would they all go out of business? This is the fly in the ointment of Cain’s plan, and as I don’t worry that it would ever pass, it’s sort of a moot point. But believe me, no one in the lower or middle class would like it if it did ever pass, as only the wealthy would be able to afford new goods, and the rest of us would be consigned to the “used” goods category. No thanks.