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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