Herman Cain

Cain's 9-9-9 Plan Makes Experts Dial 9-1-1

Brian Beutler | October 4, 2011, 5:55AM

Herman Cain has turned the number nine into a campaign mantra. He's running on a plan to wipe out the current tax code and replace it with one branded 9-9-9 -- a nine percent personal income tax, a nine percent corporate income tax and a nine percent sales tax.

This, even conservative experts agree, wouldn't provide the federal government with enough revenue to maintain the safety net and would lead therefore to either persistent deficits and growing debt, or a drastic reduction in social programs.

Because in addition to setting the rates at nine percent, he says he wants them essentially frozen there, so they can't climb to meet the nation's needs.

Fox News' Chris Wallace recently asked Cain "[H]ow do you guarantee that 9-9-9 down the line doesn't become 12-12-12?"

Cain responded, "In the legislation that I'm going to ask Congress to send me, I want a two-thirds vote required by the Senate in order for them to change it. That will impede cavalierly raising it."

There are two significant problems with this.

Read more »

Rick Perry

Perry Camp: Repealing 16th Amendment And Instituting National Sales Tax Probably Ain't Gonna Happen

Brian Beutler | August 24, 2011, 11:36AM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Figuring out Rick Perry's current position on the 16th Amendment and the so-called Fair Tax is the parlor game of the moment in politics. See Greg Sargent here, and CBS here. His campaign released a recent statement suggesting that though Perry backs the "Fair Tax" option in his book, altering the Constitution and implementing an actual national consumption tax is probably too heavy a lift.

"The 16th Amendment instituting a federal income tax starting at one percent has exploded into onerous, complex and confusing tax rates and rules for American workers over the last century," reads a statement from Perry spokesman Mark Miner. "The need for job creation in the wake of the explosion of federal debt and costly entitlement programs, mean the best course of action in the near future is a simpler, flatter and broader tax system that unleashes production, creates jobs, and creates more taxpayers. We can't undo more than 70 years of progressive taxation and worsening debt obligations overnight."

Read more »

Rick Perry

Perry Backs Radical National Sales Tax Plan To Starve Federal Government

Brian Beutler | August 23, 2011, 6:30AM

Rick Perry speaks at a campaign stop in Florence, SC, August 19, 2011.

Rick Perry's recent political manifesto Fed Up doesn't just hint that Social Security should be privatized. It also advocates for a farther-reaching overhaul of the tax code than most conservatives support.

Perry says that government's access to new sources of revenue should be fundamentally limited -- either self-imposed by Congress, or by the Constitution itself. "One option would be to totally scrap the current tax code in favor of a flat tax, and thereby make taxation much simpler, easier to follow, and harder to manipulate," Perry writes.

"Another option would be to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution (providing the power for the income tax) altogether, and then pursue an alternative model of taxation such as a national sales tax or the Fair Tax. The time has come to stop talking about fixing the broken and burdensome tax code and to take bold action to replace it with one that is not a burden for the taxpayer and that provides only the modest revenue needed to perform the basic constitutional functions of the federal government."

Read more »

KY-SEN

Rand Paul Backtracks On National Sales Tax Plan

Evan McMorris-Santoro | October 14, 2010, 10:46AM

KY-SEN candidate Rand Paul (R)

Kentucky's Republican nominee for Senate, Rand Paul, is running away from his past support for abolishing the federal income tax in favor of a national sales tax, according to reports on the ground in the Bluegrass State.

The move is the latest walkback from the past for Paul, who started out the campaign as some kind of libertarian-tea party hybrid, unafraid to talk on national television about things like the problems he saw in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since winning the nomination, however, Paul has headed in pretty much a straight line toward establishment Republican policies when it comes to his campaign rhetoric. The national sales tax shift appears to be part of that trend.

Some conservatives have long called for the abolition of the 16th Amendment -- which created the income tax -- and the creation of a national sales tax as high as 25 cents on the dollar in its place. They argue the sales tax would be more fair. Detractors say it would hit low-income taxpayers the hardest, pretty much undoing exactly what the progressive income tax structure was supposed to do in the first place. Paul used to be one of those who called for a national sales tax, according to reports, though now he claims he never was.

Read more »