The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In Praise Of Jennifer Rubin

Posted on | October 20, 2011 | 55 Comments

by Smitty

You have to admire the courage of somebody who can assert

Herman Cain is having a tough time. He had a rocky debate. His campaign centerpiece, the 9-9-9 tax plan, is being skewered.

He had a rocky debate? Are you sure he didn’t debate Bullwinkle?Or, perhaps somebody about town with Ms. Rubin?What, precisely, was rocky? Any details? And who is skewering his 9-9-9 plan? Adolf Hitler? Adolf, it must be pointed out, was more worried about his girlfriend getting into the details of the 9-9-9 plan than he was worried about the plan itself.

So, one is left to wonder, Jennifer, what specific objections YOU have to the 9-9-9 plan:

9-9-9 Plan: Summary

  • Removes all payroll taxes and unites all tax payers
  • Provides the least incentive to evade taxes and the fewest opportunities to do so
  • Lifts a $430 billion dead-weight burden on the economy due to compliance, enforcement, collection, etc…
  • Is fair, simple, efficient, neutral, and transparent
  • Ends nearly all deductions and special interest favors
  • Features zero tax on capital gains and repatriated profits
  • Exports leave our shores without the Business Tax or the Sales Tax embedded in their cost, making them world class competitive. Imports are subject to the same taxation as domestically produced goods, leveling the playing field.
  • Lowest marginal rates on production
  • Kills the Death Tax
  • Allows immediate expensing of business investments
  • Eliminates double taxation of dividends
  • Increases capital formation which aids capital availability for small businesses
  • Increased capital per worker drives productivity and wage growth
  • Features a platform to launch properly structured Empowerment Zones to renew our inner cities
  • The pro-growth, pro-job, pro-export economic policies of the 9-9-9 PLAN equals a strong dollar policy

I’ll be honest: I haven’t worked all the math. I’m also in some agreement with Michele Bachmann: giving a new tax to DC is a joyless precedent. Herman himself may veto any mad Congress that wants to drop a 1 in front of the third 9 in the plan, but there are no guarantees for follow-on presidents.

Also, as a military chain-of-command aficionado, my preference is to empower the states more, and DC less, to rebuild the crumbled local-state-federal chain.

But let’s give the idea a little more credit than simply saying it’s being ‘skewered’. The plan as such hasn’t seen more than a minor paper cuts from a poor wee Washington Post-It. But such a brave Post-It.

Category: Herman Cain, Neutral Objective Journalism

Comments

55 Responses to “In Praise Of Jennifer Rubin”

  1. Adjoran
    October 21st, 2011 @ 2:50 am

    I’m not taking sides in the “Is it a VAT?” fight because I believe it is irrelevant.  But there is certainly one element of the 9% business tax which is identical to one of the major VAT forms:  goods and services purchased from another business aren’t subject to the tax, but wages and benefits are.  This in effect raises the income tax from 9% to 18% for anyone who works in an affected business, as that portion of the tax which business must pay on wages will be considered part of the compensation package at budget time.

    The “Fair Tax” is fatally flawed, although for the life of me I don’t understand why we would abandon “999” if it is as great as it’s being sold.

    The more stuff gets exempted (or “prebated”) from taxation on a consumption levy, the higher the rate must be to generate static revenue.  The pressure for exemptions and prebates will be high and those benefiting large numbers of voters will be too tempting to resist, meaning the rate must go even higher.

    And the numbers always assume the same collection ratio the IRS enjoys now.  ROFLMAO!  It’s easy to intimidate small individual earners into voluntarily filing and more or less honestly, because the penalties are quite severe compared to the small amounts they stand to gain.  But put a 27-30% consumption tax on, and you begin to depend upon the businesses to remit that honestly, and the numbers change the odds.  Without a virtual IRS Gestapo, significant portions of those taxes will never make it to DC.

    Ask the states who have sales taxes if it’s a problem. 

  2. Anonymous
    October 21st, 2011 @ 6:29 am

    Please review Federalist #21:

    The principle of regulating the contributions of the States to the common treasury by QUOTAS is another fundamental error in the Confederation.

  3. ThePaganTemple
    October 21st, 2011 @ 7:55 am

    I was talking about Forbes. He was on some program talking in support of Perry’s flat tax proposal, and that was pretty much all he talked about. I don’t remember now what program it was, only that it was something on Fox.

  4. ThePaganTemple
    October 21st, 2011 @ 8:01 am

    A sales tax is just a rotten idea. It’s begging for controversy, and the only way=the ONLY way-it could ever be passed is by exempting food, medicine, rent, mortgage payments, automobiles and real property. Then you’ll have pushes to exempt clothing, as that’s also a basic necessity, and you’ll even have demands for exemptions on hotels, restaurants, theme parks, etc., on the grounds that a tax will hurt certain local tourist economies. By the time its all said and done you won’t have enough left over to fund basic government expenses, let alone the military. You see how these people bitch now when you talk about reducing military spending by five or ten percent, just wait until they see what’s coming if this turkey is ever passed.

  5. Bob Belvedere
    October 21st, 2011 @ 6:55 pm

    WOLVERINES!