9-9-9 plan and beyond

I began this post early in October, but because my internet was down for the month and beyond, have only just now been able to post it.

Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan

Early October

Ah, simplicity itself.  9-9-9. How could anything be better?  Easy to understand too.  Fewer pages to read.  9-9-9.  As long as you don’t read it upside down, as Michele Bachmann suggested.

No wonder Herman Cain has surged ahead in the polls.  He has a message, a plan, that everyone can understand.  Or at least, they think they can understand it; I wonder how many have actually read it and can tell you what the 9-9-9 stands for, or what the economists have to say about how it would work. 9% corporate income tax.  9% personal income tax.  9% national sales tax.  No payroll taxes, no medicare taxes.  No deductions or tax credits.  No capital gains tax.  Ah, yes, simple indeed.

Here’s how it would work, according to Center for American Progress.  Poor America would see their taxes increase by 900%.  That’s great.  It would help to make up for all those years that 43% of Americans paid no federal income taxes at all.  There would be a substantial increase on the middle class.   Two examples:  A family with an income of $50,000 who presently pays $3,515 in taxes would see their taxes double to $7,500, a 100% increase.   A family with an income of $120,000 presently paying $31,600 would see an increase of $800, to $32,400.  The richest 1% of the population would see their taxes fall from 28% to 11%.  Well, what could be more fair?  They have been carrying such a heavy burden of taxes all this time.    Social Security and Medicare would be abolished.  People in need would get help from their state and local systems, and from churches, charities, and neighbors. 

This is deemed by critics the greatest shift of taxes from wealthy to poor ever.  It would explode the deficit to the highest it’s been since WWII, and it would bankrupt the country.  So they say.

Now admittedly I have not done in-depth research on this, since my internet was down for the month of October, but I understand you can go to Herman Cain’s website and read it for yourself, and then to the above cited source, or any other you can access, and see what the results would be.   I understand that Rich Lowrie, not an economist but a bank manager and associate of Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, developed his plan.

Now we have just learned that the 9-9-9 plan appeared originally as the default plan in SimCity 4 video game.  But Cain says that whoever says that is lying.

Update Monday Oct 17

Sometime ago someone suggested that Herman Cain was being bankrolled by some entity that specifically wanted to keep him in the game to give the Republicans cred as being inclusive.  But that seemed like a wild guess.  Now it seems that a half-dozen or more current and former members of Cain’s staff were formerly associated with Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity.

Update Sunday Oct 23

Now Herman Cain has modified his 9-9-9 plan to a 9-0-9 plan for people below the poverty line.  They would pay no taxes.  And he is also considering an opportunity zone, where in order to improve job opportunities the minimum wage would be abolished.  Opportunity, indeed.  For whom?

NOTE:  The top 1% owns 40% of the wealth, gets 24% of the income, owns 50% of stocks.   The top 10% owns 90% of stocks, 75% of the wealth.  The top 400 families own as much wealth as the bottom 150 million people.

Who would benefit?  Last year Herman Cain had earned income of $800,000, on which he would have paid 9% income tax, which would have left him with just $692,000.  Although there is also that income from sale of stocks, etc., which brought him another $800,000, which, under his plan, would not have been taxed.  Oh, and of course, he would have had to pay sales taxes on merchandise purchased.

Monday October 31

Now Rick Perry has come out with his 20-20-0 plan.  Flat tax of 20% on everyone, 20% corporate tax, no sales tax.  No taxes on capital gains, dividends, investment.  When asked about the exorbitant benefit this would be to the rich, he says:  “I don’t care about that.  Just so they have more money to invest.”  Yeah, right.  His plan was devised by he of the flannel shirts, remember Steve Forbes?  Ran in ’96 on this plan.    Didn’t get him very far.

Now we hear that Mitt Romney will be presenting his own “flatter” tax scheme.  And, if I recall, Rick Santorum has his own 0-0-0 plan.