Herman Cain is a fraud, he's doing the same thing Sarah Palen does

Of course, he's not to be trusted. Thanks BBB for reiterating what needs to be said.

October 12, 2011
Cain's 9-9-9 plan: Good for the rich, bad for the poor
By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's proposed 9-9-9 tax plan would shift the tax burden in the United States, raising taxes on the poor while cutting taxes for the wealthy.

Cain proposes to scrap the current tax code and replace it with a flat 9 percent tax on personal income, a second 9 percent tax on corporate income, and a third 9 percent tax on sales. It also would eliminate the payroll tax paid for Medicare and Social Security, the estate tax, and capital gains taxes.

While the Cain campaign has not produced enough details for thorough independent analysis, a flat 9 percent income tax and a 9 percent national sales tax would almost certainly mean higher taxes for at least the 30 million U.S. households that now pay no federal taxes.

And it almost certainly would mean big tax cuts for the wealthy, who now pay a 35 percent marginal rate on their income above $379,150.

The catchy 9-9-9 tax plan has helped the former Godfathers pizza CEO surge into the top tier contending for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. With his rising support, Cain's plan is drawing more scrutiny, with the potential shift of the tax burden just one of the profound effects the dramatic change in tax policy could have — if Cain were elected and managed somehow to get it past an army of lobbyists and through Congress to enactment.

Ultimately, in a second phase, Cain's plan would eliminate all income taxes for individuals and for corporations in favor of a national sales tax. To raise sufficient money to fund the government, the sales tax rate would rise significantly, perhaps to 23 percent, analysts estimate, though Cain hasn't specified a level yet.

The changes in income taxes would turn away from the progressive tax policy that's shaped U.S. policy for a century, based on the principle that the wealthier people are, the more they can afford to pay in taxes to the society that's enriched them.

"The plan could be expected to raise substantial amounts of revenue, but does so largely by skewing downwards the distribution of tax burdens," said a new analysis of the Cain plan this week by Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor of tax law at the University of Southern California. He's also a former chief of staff at the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which analyses all tax legislation for Congress. "The 9-9-9 Plan would materially raise the tax burden on many low- and middle-income taxpayers."

Others agree.

"It's regressive relative to what we have now," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a joint effort of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, center-left policy-research centers. "It would raise taxes for people at the bottom and lower taxes at the top end."

Cain has insisted it would not hurt poorer Americans, in large part because he would eliminate the payroll tax. But nearly 30 million households — about 18 percent — pay neither income taxes nor the FICA payroll tax, according to Williams. Most would pay more, perhaps much more.

Cain proposes to levy the 9 percent flat tax on all income after allowing an undetermined amount of charitable contributions to be deducted. He also would create "empowerment zones" where people would have additional deductions.

People with lower incomes also would pay a disproportionate share of their income in sales taxes, because they spend much more of their income on retail goods.

Wealthier Americans could pay lower taxes. First, there would be no taxes on capital gains or large estates. Second, all income after deductions would be taxed at 9 percent. As of now, taxable income over $379,950 is taxed at 35 percent.

"If you're one of the minority of people, the top 10 percent of the population, who pay 70 percent of the income tax revenues, you might see the change as a good deal," said Dean Clancy, legislative counsel for FreedomWorks, a conservative group.

"But if you're lower down the income scale, and especially if you're one of the 50 percent of Americans who don't pay any income taxes, then you might not see it as such a good trade. And if you're poor, you might really hate it."

A lot depends on details that Cain has not yet released. For example, it's unknown if he would make people pay the sales tax on food and medicine. If he exempted those, as many states do, more people would pay lower taxes.

But the government also would collect fewer revenues to pay its bills — or it would have to raise the sales tax rate.

Cain said in a debate Tuesday that his plan would leave government revenues essentially the same, basing his conclusion on advice from "well-recognized economists" and a study by an "independent" firm. He did not identify either the economists or the firm, and did not release the study. The one economic adviser he did name was Rich Lowrie, a manager for Wells Fargo who is not a trained economist.

Moreover, he said he relied on "dynamic" scoring, the theory that revenue estimates of what changes to taxes would yield should be based not just on the taxes themselves, but on presumed growth in the economy after taxes fall.

One media analysis by the Bloomberg news service said the plan as proposed would leave the government with about $200 billion less in revenues than it's collecting now.

Cain's talk of his 9-9-9 plan also does not address his ultimate goal, the abolition of income taxes and the Internal Revenue Service in favor of a national sales tax alone, or Fair Tax.

While that would replace two of the nines with zeros, it also would necessarily multiply the third. One recent Fair Tax proposal hinged on a 23 percent national sales tax as necessary to match today's revenues.

Cain hasn't said what he'd exempt from that tax, or how high the rate would be. That may be murky policy, but it is good politics.

"The more things you exempt, the higher the rate," said Michael Franc, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group. "And the higher the rate, the harder the sell."

Cain's 9-9-9 plan
http://www.hermancain.com/999plan

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/12/127065/cains-9-9-9-plan-good-for-the.html#ixzz1agXCgzG1

Grover Norquist is on record as being against it. It imposes a VAT which is a new federal tax. It won't fly.

Cain's new social security and health care plans:
Modernize Social Programs

SOCIAL SECURITY

Big government enthusiasts designed social programs to provide a financial safety net, but, in turn, dependency on the government for the most vulnerable in society became an expected entitlement. Decades since their inception, far too many Americans have shifted their expectations from government assistance to entitlement. Too many people have exchanged their freedom for a false sense of security that these programs are supposed to provide.

Unfortunately, this has not only been to the sociological detriment of America, but also to its economic detriment. Simply, ever-expanding social programs are compromising the current and future financial stability of this great country. According to a May 2009 article in Newsweek, current projections indicate that Medicare will go bankrupt by 2017 and Social Security will bottom out by 2037. These figures are advanced from 2008’s estimates, which forecasted Medicare’s bankruptcy to occur in 2019 and 2041 for Social Security. The situation will continue to worsen if we do not do something differently.

For the generations or workers who have paid into Social Security and Medicare, the federal government’s inevitable failure to pay them as they retire is undeniably stealing. These are generations who have worked and sacrificed to leave this country a better place for their children and grand children as they retire. The current behavior of an out of control federal government does little to ease their minds.

The federal government has imposed expensive and often counter-productive social and welfare programs on the states and the people. It is time to admit the mistakes, and get the federal government out of the way. This will allow states, cities, churches, charities and businesses to offer a helping hand instead of a handout where they live. People closest to the problems are the best ones to solve the problems effectively.

We can fulfill our responsibility to our golden age citizens and future retirees by empowering them instead of restricting them.

MEDICARE

Repeal and Replace Health Care “Deform”

President Obama and the liberals in Congress have dismantled the free market health care system and replaced it with health care “deform.” They have passed measures that compromise the sacred patient-doctor relationship, eliminate patient choice, stick a bureaucrat in the examining room, ration care and do nothing to limit frivolous lawsuits that drive up the cost of health care. In all of these provisions, they made health care more expensive and less accessible for American families they claimed to protect.

Under the guise of making health care a “right” for all people, President Obama and the liberals in Congress instead extended the tentacles of government, expanding their control and diminishing patients’ rights. They have also made it more difficult and more expensive for doctors to practice medicine, including specialized practitioners who are desperately needed to save lives. In reality, their attempts at reforming the system have actually deformed it.

The majority of Americans agree: it’s time to repeal and replace Obamacare with patient-centered, free market reforms. It’s time to institute legitimate tort reforms that let doctors practice medicine without fear of frivolous lawsuits. Loser pay laws would be a great start! That is, require those who lose frivolous lawsuits to pay the legal expenses of those found not guilty. Additionally, loosening the restrictions on Health Savings Accounts would help to empower Americans to save and invest their own money to expand their options for health care.

Let’s level the playing field under the current tax code and allow the deductibility of health insurance premiums regardless of whether they are purchased by the employer or the employee. That would help shift ownership of one’s health care back to where it belongs, the individual. Patient-centered free market health care reforms have already been developed and introduced in Congress, but they are stuck in committee and they can’t get out. With the right leadership we can get them out and get them passed.

http://www.hermancain.com/the-issues

His 9-9-9 plan would raise my taxes. I pay around 15% but his plan would raise my taxes to 27% on every dime I make. Great for the rich who pay 35% and would get an 8% reduction in taxes. And his tax plan would be taxes on all the money one gets, no deductions.

H2oman will be here shortly to debate you on this, BBB. And you sure had better watch out because there ain't but a few that can debate better than him. Quite the head on that boy!

10.14.11
Business groups blast Cain’s 9-9-9 plan as job killer
By Marc Caputo
[email protected]

Called a job killer at worst or a detail-free slogan at best, Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan is getting tepid-to-awful reviews from some of the nation’s most-influential business groups.

The National Retail Federation strongly opposes the Republican presidential candidate’s plan because it would institute a first-ever national sales tax of 9 percent that, the federation says, will dampen consumer spending.

“This will hurt demand and slow the economic recovery,” the federation’s tax policy expert, Rachelle Bernstein, said. “You definitely do not want to do this.”

But Cain said the economy will boom and suggested people will see an overall tax savings due to the big reductions in the income-tax and corporate-tax rates. Each rate would drop to 9 percent.

“They have the flexibility to decide on how much they want to spend on new goods, how much they want to spend on used goods,” Cain said Tuesday during a nationally televised debate.

Cain’s plan became the main focus of the debate as his Republican opponents bashed it for lacking specifics and being politically unrealistic – criticisms now echoed by the retail federation and, to a slightly lesser extent, by the National Association of Homebuilders.

Until Tuesday’s debate and his recent surge in the polls, Cain’s 9-9-9 plan was a political plus. Catchy and bumper-sticker simple, it enabled the candidate to answer succinctly in previous debates where he didn’t have to defend the plan because he was a lower-tier candidate on a crowded stage.

Now, the plan is more politically perilous. Its simplicity draws attention to his lack of political experience and allows critics to more easily claim Cain emphasizes style over substance.

In the short-term, though, the criticisms of Cain's plan have galvanized his support among many conservatives and have burnished his credentials as a Washington outsider.

Michael R. Caputo, a political consultant who works in Florida and New York, said that "when lobbyists bash a plan, I like it more." He said that Cain "had me at 9-9-9. Politicians maintain power by mystifying government until a citizen with clarity and gravitas calls them out."

Unaddressed by Cain or the critics is the effect that the new national sales tax could have in a state like Florida, where the sales-tax rate is 7 percent or higher in most counties.

Florida, the nation’s largest swing state, doesn’t tax food and medicines; Cain’s plan probably would.

Florida’s general-revenue state budget is primarily funded by sales taxes because the state has no income tax. If consumers hold back on purchases, then the budget shortfalls would likely grow bigger and state legislators would have to cut more from schools and health programs.

The homebuilders association said 9-9-9 could be bad for any state where construction is a mainstay of the economy, as in Florida. The association says Cain’s proposal could impose new taxes on rentals, remodeling jobs, mortgages and sales of new homes.

“It would have a negative impact on a fragile housing market, particularly in a state like Florida,” said Robert Dietz, an economist with the association.

But Dietz – like other economists and those with the retail federation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business – said there was only so much of Cain’s tax plan that could be analyzed because there aren’t enough details. None of the four business groups plans to endorse a candidate in the Republican presidential race.

The chamber and NFIB were more measured in their reaction to Cain’s proposal. They had little good to say about the few available details of the plan itself, but credited Cain for trying to simplify a complicated tax system.

So did the godfather of conservative tax policy, Grover Norquist, who nevertheless bashed Cain’s proposal.

"Having three taxes, all of which can grow — it’s like having three needles in your arm taking blood out, it’s much more dangerous than having one," Norquist said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show Thursday.

The concerns also indicate that, even if Cain ultimately became president, his proposal would never pass Congress — a point stressed by his Republican opponents Tuesday night at the Bloomberg/ Washington Post Republican Presidential Debate in New Hampshire.

Even the crowd didn’t seem to like the 9-9-9 proposal when Republican Rick Santorum began blasting away at it.

“Herman’s plan… could not pass,” Santorum said, turning to the crowd. “How many people here are for a sales tax in New Hampshire? Raise your hand.”

Not many – if any – did.

“There you go, Herman. That’s how many votes you’ll get in New Hampshire,” Santorum said.

“9-9-9 will pass,” Cain responded. “It starts with, unlike your proposals, throwing out the current tax code. Continuing to pivot off the current tax code is not going to boost this economy. This is why we developed 9-9-9, 9 percent corporate business flat tax, 9 percent personal income flat tax, and a 9 percent national sales tax. And it will pass, Senator, because the American people want it to pass.”

Cain said his proposal has been “well-studied and well-developed” but he didn’t name names, except for a man he credited as a father of the plan, Richard Lowrie, who’s a Wells Fargo financial advisor near Cleveland, Ohio. Lowrie isn’t an economist. Usually, campaigns employ well-known economists to flesh out their proposals.

Earlier in the debate, a debate moderator noted that a Bloomberg analysis estimated Cain’s proposal would cause an additional $200 billion budget deficit — which Cain called “incorrect” because he used different financial assumptions. He didn’t spell out why the numbers were different.

“We have had an outside firm, independent firm dynamically score it. And so our numbers will make it revenue neutral,” Cain said. But he didn’t name the outside firm, nor has he posted the additional analysis on his website.

If Bloomberg’s analysis is right, however, Congress is likely to balk at a plan that would add to the nation’s $14 trillion debt.

Also, Cain’s plan could disproportionately benefit wealthy people — who currently pay a disproportionate share of taxes — and shift more of the tax burden to middle- and lower-income people, some of whom pay no income taxes at all right now.

"The 9-9-9 Plan would materially raise the tax burden on many low- and middle-income taxpayers," Edward D. Kleinbard, a University of Southern California tax-law professor and a former chief of staff at the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, wrote in an analysis.

Politically speaking, the tax shift would inevitably lead to cries of class warfare — especially in a nation where nearly every major public poll shows that even a majority of Republicans could stomach more taxes on the rich to pay down the debt.

Economically speaking, the shift in taxes and the increase in sales taxes will affect the purchasing power of lower- and middle-income people. Their purchases drive the economy. Raise the price, and sales fall, said the retail federation’s Bernstein.

When big lobbies like the federation clearly voice their opposition, Congress takes note and often does little new. Congress’ so-called “Super Committee” is already struggling to find a consensus over reducing the debt by eliminating tax breaks or cutting spending.

Congress hasn’t conducted large-scale tax reform since 1986.

“Anytime you make a big change and there are losers, that can be a challenge,” said Brad Close, vice president of public policy for NFIB.

President Obama learned how difficult it was to get Congress to act. Though most national polls showed he advocated popular positions about raising taxes on the wealthy, Congress — including members of his own party — balked.

Overhauling the tax code is a problem for any legislative body. In Florida, former House Speaker Marco Rubio, who’s now a U.S. Senator, couldn’t persuade the state Senate to eliminate a portion of property taxes in return for a sales-tax increase. The Florida Retail Federation and other business groups fought the plan in the state Capitol, just as their national counterparts would in Congress.

Mark Wilson, the president of Florida's Chamber of Commerce who sits on the national chamber's board, said it was opposed to Rubio's tax swap at the time because it would have raised the cost of business in a state where about 40 percent of sales taxes result from business-to-business transactions. Wilson said there isn't yet enough detail to analyze 9-9-9-, though he credited Cain for helping further the dialogue about restructuring the tax code.

Cain, the former CEO of Godfathers pizza and an unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia, said the fact that he’s a political outsider distinguishes him and his plan from the other Republican candidates.

“Therein lies the difference between me, the non- politician, and all of the politicians,” he said. “They want to pass what they think they can get passed rather than what we need, which is a bold solution. 9-9-9 is bold, and the American people want a bold solution, not just what’s going to kick the can down the table — down the road.

But groups like the homebuilders and the retail federations also want specifics and a tax plan that helps their bottom line. And, so far, Cain’s plan doesn’t look like it delivers either for them.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/14/v-fullstory/2453651/business-groups-blast-cains-9.html#ixzz1amoJ2R6Z