Herman Cain, First Thoughts UPDATES

9-9-9 in New Hampshire will be 17% tax on everything. milk and butter etc.
He’ll never get out of NH with more than 10% of the GOP vote.

There is a lot to like about Cain. That does not automatically qualify him to be president. He is smart (in a way that is underestimated). Still, there are lots of smart people that I would never want to be president. I think Cain’s 9-9-9 plan has gotten people to talk about reforming our whole tax structure. That is a great effect of his campaign. However, 9-9-9 is a very radical change to our current system. Anyone proposing a radical change has the obligation to discuss the details, the ramifications, and potential risks of this. Cain has not yet demonstrated a mastery of the details of the effects of such a radical change. I think there is no a priori reason to believe the 9% happens to be the magical number for each different tax. How convenient that income and capital gains should be taxed at that rate. Why 9%? I don’t think he is clear on this.

I think there is reason to believe it would impose too much of a burden on lower income people, although I believe that everyone should have some “skin in the game” with respect to income taxes (because of what income taxes pay for). So, the principle of everyone paying something could get swept under the rug if the proposal is too burdensome for those in lower income brackets.

Cain is definitely refreshing, and I can’t think of another candidate we can say that about.

I hate the debate format and hate when one candidate tries to attack the others rather than present ideas. I also would like to see some start to drop out who appear to have minimal chance so we could see more of those who will be the candidate for the Republican Party.

Rick Perry is kind of getting on my nerves and I do not see him lasting. Rick Santorum has several points that he is very good on and that are indeed important and being overlooked and that is focus on families and programs that will make them stronger, not programs to create more single parent homes.

Newt has the most common sense things to say, but he is poison to many from his past.

Bottom line is that any of them would be a massive improvement on Obama and all the candidates need to start comparing their programs and ideas to those of Obama, not each other. Let the American people here their ideas as contrasted to Obama and from that decide who they want to run against Obama.

Oops… I mean corporate rate instead of capital gains.

I have read comments on various blogs that the 9-9-9 plan would be hard on the working poor but I don’t understand that. My understanding is that it would replace the payroll tax which is about 15% if you consider employee and employer contributions. Since the 9% sales tax is only on new items I would expect it to be unlikely that the effective tax rate (sales tax plus 9% on income) for the working poor would be greater than 15%. What am I missing?

The chairman of a regional fed is something close to the opposite of the job currently held by Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. The post is just a bit short of honorary, and offers a group of local business, labor, and community leaders a chance to interact with the local officials who, in turn, have a rather faint voice in the deliberations of the Federal Reserve in Washington. The local Fed officials operate as “data collectors, monitors for the local economy,” as the Heritage Foundation’s J.D. Foster puts it
But Cain wasn’t setting monetary policy at the Fed. Mostly, he was chairing meetings, asking questions, and offering his own views on the regional economy. In short, get over it, the position was an honorary one, not a paid position…

9-9-9 is in fact an 18.7% tax on retail transactions.

Perry is the most conservative of the bunch. Even if 9-9-9 is a good idea (which it isn’t) how could he get it through Congress? He has no experience in dealing with a legislature. Romneycare completely negates him. He’s a lib and was flustered last night. Perry is absolutely on the right track with energy and will be proposing a flat tax with the help of Steve Forbes. Watch Cain flame out.

I’ve liked most of what I’ve seen about and from him. Read his recent book, and it does reveal a lot of the points brought up in this post.

I tend to think of 9-9-9 as a starting point. Cain doesn’t pretend to have THE ANSWER, but does have a plan, and does acknowledge that he’d have advisers to shape policy. He’s also a man who knows where the buck stops, and where it comes from.

Discussion of Herman Cain in a right-wing, neoliberal and pro-establishment newspaper.

http://www.economist.com/node/21532282

To my mind, anyone who sneers at furrins in this way is ruled out automatically. International relations have never been more important than they are now, and there’s no place for someone who doesn’t have a fairly detailed grasp of the subject and seemingly doesn’t care enough to do the urgent thing, which is to appoint experts who know even more than himself.

The biggest concern I have is Romney, who looks set to win. He wants to portray himself as the sane, moderate candidate, and it’s easy to do so given some of his rivals, but he’s glad to have them around really since it masks the fact that he is himself deeply right-wing… if he’s anything at all, which is a fairly big if.

I also recall Cain saying he’d discriminate against Muslims in appointing his cabinet. There’s a Muslim in the British cabinet now who is a pretty cast-iron conservative, and are we supposed to say that her counterparts in Herman Cain’s America couldn’t aspire to high office because they are a fifth column who aren’t truly part of the country at all? That seems to me more a stunt than the actions of a serious-minded policy maker.

[I was reading this newspaper- there was also a bit about women in Arab countries that I liked.

http://www.economist.com/node/21532256 ]

Isn’t it a fact that 50% of the population pays no taxes already? So talk about “increasing” the tax burden on them is a democrat distortion.

Everyone should have to contribute something in taxes. A person who earns a million dollars under the 9-9-9 plan will pay $90,000 in income taxes. The poor person who earns $15,000 will pay $1,350. So the wealthier person will pay 66% more in taxes than the less well off person. The wealthy will continue to pay far more taxes under a flat tax plan, a fact which the media intentionally disguises.

I love the way you filled out the person who is Cain, and I agree whole heartedly that we need a leader with a sunny, bursting, positive spirit.

BTW, those with doubts about 9-9-9 need to open their minds for a second and do some basic math. I did, and I found a lot of gems in 9-9-9.

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/17493

If you focus on one 9 only (like sales taxes) and don’t do all the gives and takes across income related taxes and sales taxes, you miss the fact we all will be walking around with a lot more disposable income, and we the people will be investing in America’s economy and future with that larger disposable income – NOT the pols and bureaucrats in DC.

The person earning $1 million in a given year actually pays 660 times in income taxes what the person earning 15,000 pays. That is pretty “progressive” to me.

AJ is correct. Instead of paying $390,0000 in income tax, the high earner will pay $90,000 and have $300,000 in additional disposable income. This will light a fire under consumer spending and the economy, everyone will benefit, rich and poor. We need to remember that the poor do not create jobs as a rule, the wealthy do. We have to stop thinking that they need to be punished or are being greedy. Most got their money by hard work.

You should take a look at Canada’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) which was implemented in 1989 to do away with the manufacturer’s sales tax (which was a nightmare to administer). Lots of critics at the time, but it has been a windfall to the government coffers (even after rebates to low-income people) and some exceptions.

The next stage was to combine the various provincial sales taxes with the federal GST so that there is one tax (already in effect in Quebec, Ontario and the Maritime provinces) – it makes sense for businesses to only have to report one tax.

The reality is that the US has a huge problem between spending and revenue – yes one route is to control spending (but that doesn’t seem to be happening) but the other is to increase revenue in a way that is fair to all (not the silly tax the rich approach). A national sales tax (based on consumption) is one way – but it has to be done in conjunction with reducing spending and reducing overall tax rates and complexity of the tax system.

Cain is my # 2 after Santorum. 9-9-9 makes me nervous, however, because I don’t trust congress to be given a new tax to play with without repealing the income tax amendment. I am disappointed that no candidates are proposing closing entire cabinet departments. Government will not shrink without actions of this magnitude.

Doc: FYI Ron Paul has proposed closing entire cabinet depts, and reducing the others…

Of course we need to reduce entitlement spending.

On that note, is there any reason why the following plan for reducing Social Security’s deficit isn’t accepted by everyone, in a pretty easy, casual way?

1. For anyone currently receiving Social Security, they continue to do so;

2. For anyone two years or more away from receiving Social Security, the number of years away they are increases by 50%; that is: 2 years goes to 3; 6 years goes to 9; 10 years to 15; and so on, with a maximum eligibility age equal to the mean life expectancy of U.S. residents (in 2007, that was 78 years).

3. Take the maximum eligibility age mentioned in #2 (78 years) and update it annually to the new mean life expectancy. This number, which moves from year to year, becomes the new Social Security eligibility age. But no-one who is less than a year from retirement will have his time-to-eligibility increased; once you’re within a year, your eligibility age remains fixed, even if the life expectancy goes up.

4. When Social Security runs surpluses, if it ever does, do not permit the surpluses to build up to vast amounts and get used as they currently are used (I.O.U.s from the government to itself, which in turn promotes overspending). Instead, increase the pay-out amounts for current retirees sufficiently to eliminate half the surplus for any given year. This reduces the future temptation to become addicted to overspending funded by worthless borrowing against future generations…and it makes this plan a mite more attractive to the elderly, who’re normally twitchy about changes to Social Security, even when those changes won’t even affect them.

Now it seems clear to me that this reduction saves vast amounts of money, probably enough to rescue the program from insolvency, and the long-term updating of the eligibility age to keep up with changes in life expectancy means that it’ll stay solvent. And, the persons who’re hurt most by the change are the folks who’re farthest away from it, who care least about it, and who honestly don’t ever expect to get Social Security anyway.

So why hasn’t this reform, or something like it, already passed?

Jennifer Rubin is 24/7 pro Romney like so many other ‘inside the beltway’ bloggers. It seems to me that any candidate challenging him is subject to her constant bashing: first Perry, now Cain. She used to be such an intelligent reporter when she was the lead on CONTENTIONS blog; now at WAPO she’s just another conservative-hater. Something in the water? Whenever I see one of her articles I wonder if she’s on Romney’s payroll; if not, she should be.

Glad to hear that Cains degree is computer science. To get that degree you have to have real brains, and not just the ability to parrot leftist claptrap back to a professor. And that degree, combines with his business degree, means that sound economics, and making budget numbers add up, will not be a foreign concept for him.

Let’s say President Herman Cain becomes unpopular, and has to deal with a Democrat majority in the House and Senate, an even harder situation than Obama is in now. Hands up if you see that one ending well!

I don’t know about Cain enough yet, but like his no nonsense, commonsense persona. As far as the electrified fences, well I don’t like it but having lived in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico where there are 8-10 violent executions daily by the vicious drug cartels and corrupt cops, and with close to 50k dead on that drug war in the Mexican side, the idea doesn’t sound as crazy anymore.

Becca, Cain did not give any interview like you just described. Please supply a link to the transcript. He has been pro-life from the start of his campaign.

The great thing about Herman Cain is that he is an Outsider…So, he will make some minor mistakes here and there.

However, his 999 Plan is bold as it wipes out the current corrupt, government pick winners, system. He is winning by 7 in Iowa, 11 in South Carolina, up by 2 or tied in Florida ….and a strong 2nd in New Hampshire.

Also, Nationally, Cain is either ahead or tied with Romney. What people are expressing they like about Cain is his candid views (expect minor mistakes) and his experience as a business person and and strong leadership skills.

…Now, Cain has to translate his early success and transition into a national campaign by adding staff and refining his views on other issues. Give him some time to adjust…we wanted an outsider and we got one.

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