Free Republic

So what about Herman Cain's 999 tax plan? Turns out it has some very good aspects -- and some others, not so good. I'd give it two rousing cheers and one bronx cheer. ...But here we come to a problem. Cain doesn't get rid of the income tax. Instead, he reforms it. And then he adds a new levy -- a national retail sales tax -- on top of it.

WASHINGTON -- Herman Cain's bid for the Republican presidential nomination is fueled in part by his proposed tax code overhaul that tax policy veterans say doesn't add up. Cain's proposal is gaining attention after a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday found his campaign is tied for second place with Texas Gov. Rick Perry among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. In campaign stops, Cain touts his 9-9-9 plan as a concept that will lead to a fairer tax system. The proposal would tax sales transactions and gross income for individuals and businesses at 9 percent while eliminating levies on capital gains....

In what could be a way of lowering expectations for next Thursday's big economic speech, aides to President Obama are privately spreading word that he will not present his entire jobs plan in his address to a Joint Session of Congress. Aides say Thursday's speech will be part of a bigger plan the White House will roll out throughout the fall with the president hitting the road for speeches and town hall appearances. Aides have already confirmed that Obama will be traveling to California, Colorado, and Washington state for one three-day swing later this month that will include economic events...

THE United States became the world’s largest economy because we invented products and then made them with new processes. With design and fabrication side by side, insights from the factory floor flowed back to the drawing board. Today, our most important task is to restart this virtuous cycle of invention and manufacturing. Rebuilding our manufacturing capacity requires the demolition of the idea that the United States can thrive on its service sector alone. We need to create at least 20 million jobs in the next decade to offset the effects of the recession and to address our $500 billion trade...

It's conventional wisdom in Washington to blame the federal government's dire financial outlook on runaway entitlement spending. Unless we rein in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the conventional wisdom goes, the federal government is headed for disaster. That's true in the long run. But what is causing massive deficits now? Is it the same entitlements that threaten the future? Yes, say some conservatives who favor making entitlement reform a key issue in the 2012 campaign. "We're $1.5 trillion in debt," Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol said Sunday, referring to this year's projected deficit. "Where's the debt coming from? It's coming...

Conservatives are constantly being accused of wanting no government. When we talk about wanting to eliminate things like the IRS, the Departments of Energy and Education or rein in rouge agencies like the EPA and the NLRB we are accused of wanting no government at all. That’s simply false. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a conservative speak about wanting to eliminate all government, or even the federal government. Most conservatives understand that the absence of functional government brings chaos. In an environment where chaos reigns, at some point someone will step in and impose order. That person or...

Yesterday my son and I were travelling down the road when he turns to me and tells me that the lady on the corner panhandling is holding a sign with one hand and talking on her smartphone with the other. Am I missing something here?

One of Barack Obama's job creation programs appears to be working – the number of federal government regulators along with their budgets has exploded since 2008. Total employment at the conglomeration of federal agencies responsible for enforcing compliance with the myriad of laws now exceeds 281,000 people.  That's an increase of 13 percent during a time when 27 million Americans find themselves unemployed, under-employed, or have completely given up even trying to find work.  The budgets at these same agencies have increased 16 percent during the same period to over $54 billion.With the expanded staffs, the agencies have ramped up...

“They Did It!” The President just concluded a frenzied “jobs” bus tour to explain why unemployment is at 9.1% — after borrowing nearly $5 trillion in stimulus the last three years. You know the usual suspects responsible for our, not his, malaise: George Bush did it; the Republican obstructionists in the Congress who were wary of approving another $2 trillion in debt did it; the Tea Party did it; Standard and Poor’s did it; the Japanese earthquake did it; the Japanese tsunami and nuclear accidents did it; the Middle East unrest did it; the European debt crisis did it; new...

US Day of Rage | Resources for Non Violent Civil Disobedience #usdor #occupywallstreet #sept17 Share Many of these sections were taken from the Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns available from the War Resister's League in New York City and the Civil Disobedience Training fron ACTUP New York. Download the full Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns (PDF). Handbook for Digital and Online Civil Disobedience. (Coming Soon) US Day of Rage Guidelines for Non Violent Civil Disobedience Individual or group actions that endanger the physical well-being of other demonstrators should not be done. Generally actions that might endanger the safety of others at the...

The latest note from Nomura's Richard Koo is chock full of insight, which is not surprising since talk of fiscal consolidation, misguided ratings agencies, and balance sheet recessions is his wheelhouse. As he's famously observed before, in such recessions like these, spending cuts actually make deficits worse, and so he's particularly dismayed by the counter-productive actions of S&P. Fiscal stimulus will reduce budget deficit in balance sheet recession. What I find even more interesting is that Japan’s fiscal deficit increased under the Hashimoto administration, which pursued fiscal consolidation, but decreased under the Obuchi and Mori governments, which gave up on...

Seriously. All you people on left and right, suspend your disbelief for one minute. Seriously. What if Barack Obama was right and S&P just got it wrong. Here’s what I’m hearing and it gives credence to this theory. S&P, I’m told, began telling some of its clients about the downgrade on Friday morning. That’s why the market was so screwed up on Friday. By Friday afternoon, the Treasury Department told S&P it had made a $2 trillion math mistake. But S&P had already told its clients about the downgrade. So it couldn’t walk it back now without a major loss...

Via Breitbart TV. Remember that liberal tea party that Van Jones is building? Here’s one of their first big initiatives: The “Contract for the American Dream,” in which fresh-faced load-bearers for an imploding entitlement regime cheerily read cue cards calling for more weight on their backs, please. If you’re wondering how we can possibly afford “Medicare for all” when we can’t afford Medicare for some, you obviously missed this video from a few weeks ago of Jones reassuring America that we are not in fact broke, no matter how many zeroes there might be up on that national debt scoreboard....

For some California Tea Party conservatives, it has become a favorite statistic: Nearly half of Americans - 46 percent - don't pay taxes. The number is used to back up their claim that if that many people don't pay taxes, why should the wealthiest individuals pay more? It is accurate in a sense - 46 percent of U.S. households aren't expected to pay federal income taxes this year. "But most of those people do pay federal taxes" of some sort, such as payroll taxes, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a center-left Washington think tank,...

Barack Obama is offering us a Latin-American future. Unless things change, the man (or woman) elected in 2012 will be the last American president to preside over the world’s leading economy. If things get really bad, he will find himself presiding over the early stages of American collapse. Not “decline” but “collapse.” “Decline” is what happens when you’re Britain in the 1940s, and you cede global dominance to a major ally that shares your language, legal system, cultural inheritance, and broad geopolitical objectives. That deal isn’t on offer this time round. ... In the real world, debt ceilings are determined...

A credit rating is an informed opinion. Nothing more. Nothing less. That helps explain why one major credit rating agency -- Standard & Poor's -- has downgraded the United States, while another -- Moody's (Symbol : MCO Loading... ) -- has chosen to affirm its credit rating with caveats. Both agencies had the same essential set of facts about U.S. debt: There's a lot of it now. There's a lot more of it to come. And there's very little in the way of actual policy today that looks likely to seriously change that outlook. Where the agencies differ, however, is...

Standard & Poor's US debt downgrade was a wake-up call for the world, a commentary in a top Chinese state newspaper said... Citing economist Sun Lijian, the People's Daily on Sunday said Standard & Poor's Friday cut to the US' credit rating from the top notch triple-A to AA+ had "sounded the alarm bell for the dollar-denominated global monetary system". The comments carried in the Communist Party mouthpiece follow a stinging attack launched by the official Xinhua news agency on Saturday, which said Beijing had "every right" to demand Washington safeguard Chinese dollar assets. China -- which sat on the...

For two years, the Democrat party had a super-majority in the Senate, the majority in the House, and the executive branch. They had hundreds upon hundreds of chances to raise the debt ceiling or to cut spending but decided not to. Yet, the day after S&P downgraded the United States' credit rating, Democrats are deciding to blame Republicans for every possible thing wrong with the economy, particularly our credit. For example, Harry Reid stated in response to the news: "The action by S&P reaffirms the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction...instead of hardliners who have already ruled out...

The average worker who is unemployed has been searching for a job for 40.4 weeks, or more than nine months, according to new Labor Department figures. That is the longest average unemployment duration on record.