I agree. Just Cain’s empowerment zones are a nonstarter to me, let alone his appalling, cavalier ignorance on foreign affairs.
We are really in tough shape here looking for a presidential candidate.
I am wondering if it is constitutional and still looking into it. Now, I know that Newt wants a 10 yr zone for Detroit but he proposes NOTHING as expansive as Cain...No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear or pay Duties in another. So, what part of Article 1, Section 9, Clause 6 does Herman Cain not understand?
And if Article 1, Section 9. Clause 6 is not clear enough for Mr. Cain to understand the founder‘s intentions, and that our federal government is one of defined and limited powers, what part of Federalist No. 45 does Mr. Cain not understand which summarizes our federal government’s job as follows?
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.
The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
Cain’s proposal on empowerment zones is unconstitutional and violates the 10th ammendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.
Finally, if the above has not sent the message to Mr. Cain that his proposal is tyranny with a smiley-face, then perhaps Herman ought to read what our Supreme Court stated shortly after the Tenth Amendment was adopted:
The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing; if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act.
Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.
If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.
Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void. ____ MARBURY v. MADISON, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)
sorry to flood you but a little more on the “zones” Cain said in an interview in Detroit...
For instance, taxes in struggling areas could be set at 3-3-3 rates, 3 percent in each category.
“Because you have a lot of African-Americans located in cities like Detroit — disproportionately — it would encourage businesses to stay in business there or to move there,” Cain told CNN. “It would encourage people to work there, because if you live in the empowerment zone, you’re going to pay a smaller percentage in taxes.”
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20111021/POLITICS03/110210417/Cain-proposes-to-help-‘empowerment-zones’-such-as-Detroit#ixzz1ddU4Athz