Herman Cain

CHARTS OF THE DAY: 9-9-9 Plan Means Tax Cuts For Everybody! (Who Makes Over $200,0000)

Brian Beutler | October 19, 2011, 6:00AM

We've been reporting on the shortcomings of Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan since before it was cool. The plan wipes out the current code and creates, in effect, a nine percent flat income tax, a nine percent value added tax, and (somewhat redundantly) a nine percent national sales tax. Even generous assumptions suggest it would leave the government short of the revenue it will need to fund key government services and programs like Medicare and Social Security. And, by dramatically lowering income taxes, and replacing them with taxes that hit consumers, it's regressive.

But we didn't know just how regressive until now.

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9-9-9

GOP Senators Dance, Dance, Dance Around 9-9-9

Brian Beutler | October 18, 2011, 3:41PM

Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain

As Herman Cain has climbed in the polls, lawmakers and other GOP presidential candidates have had to contend more seriously with his ideas. One of the main attacks his opponents have leveled against his 9-9-9 tax plan is that it won't fly in Congress.

True story. Today's GOP leaders aren't willing to embrace the plan, which would wipe out the current tax code and replace it with a nine percent tax on individual income, a nine percent tax on corporate income, and a nine percent sales tax.

As noted here, here, and here, the plan has a lot of problems. It's deeply regressive. As businesses passed on the cost of their share of the tax to consumers, it would hit low and middle income earners exceptionally hard at a time when the economy desperately needs more, not less, consumption. And part of it's probably unconstitutional, at least as Cain envisions it.

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Herman Cain

What's Not To Like? Cain's 9-9-9 Plan Hits Poor, Blows Up Deficit, Threatens Entitlements

Brian Beutler and Kyle Leighton | October 7, 2011, 5:46AM

Herman Cain

Herman Cain's flagship 9-9-9 policy is perhaps the most memorable slogan of GOP primary season. Cain proposes to wipe out the existing tax code and replace it with a 9 percent individual income tax, a 9 percent corporate tax rate, and a 9 percent national sales tax. No more loopholes, no more deductions, no more exclusions, no more capital gains taxes, no more payroll taxes no more...Social Security or Medicare?

The 9-9-9 plan actually says nothing about Medicare. But numerous analyses conclude swapping out the current tax code for 9-9-9 would leave the Treasury significantly short of the insufficient revenues it currently collects. Cain has no interest in raising those rates. And that means barring unfathomable economic growth, 9-9-9 would yield enormous budget shortfalls and eventually require the government to offload popular programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

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