Art Laffer, one of the architects of the plan, explains and expands — and beats back the idea that the plan is regressive. WSJ:
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s now famous “9-9-9” plan is his explicit proposal to right the wrongs of our federal tax code. He proposes a 9% flat-rate personal income tax with no deductions except for donations to charity; a 9% flat-rate tax on net business profits; and a new 9% national tax on retail sales.
Mr. Cain’s 9-9-9 plan was designed to be what economists call “static revenue neutral,” which means that if people didn’t change what they do under his plan, total tax revenues would be the same as they are under our current tax code. I believe his plan would indeed be static revenue neutral, and with the boost it would give to economic growth it would bring in even more revenue than expected.
In the recent past, federal tax revenues from the personal and business income taxes, all payroll taxes, and the capital gains, gift and estate taxes have averaged $2.3 trillion, while gross domestic product has averaged about $14.5 trillion. The total revenue from these taxes as a share of gross domestic product averages around 16%. Sometimes it’s a good deal higher, as in the boom of the late 1990s, and sometimes its lower, as in today’s “Great Recession.” But a number in the 16%-19% range is as good as you’ll get under our current tax code.
By contrast, the three tax bases for Mr. Cain’s 9-9-9 plan add up to about $33 trillion. But the plan exempts from any tax people below the poverty line. Using poverty tables, this exemption reduces each tax base by roughly $2.5 trillion. Thus, Mr. Cain’s 9-9-9 tax base for his business tax is $9.5 trillion, for his income tax $7.7 trillion, and for his sales tax $8.3 trillion. And there you have it! Three federal taxes at 9% that would raise roughly $2.3 trillion and replace the current income tax, corporate tax, payroll tax (employer and employee), capital gains tax and estate tax.
The whole purpose of a flat tax, à la 9-9-9, is to lower marginal tax rates and simplify the tax code. With lower marginal tax rates (and boy will marginal tax rates be lower with the 9-9-9 plan), both the demand for and the supply of labor and capital will increase. Output will soar, as will jobs. Tax revenues will also increase enormously—not because tax rates have increased, but because marginal tax rates have decreased.
By making the tax codes a lot simpler, we’d allow individuals and businesses to spend a lot less on maintaining tax records; filing taxes; hiring lawyers, accountants and tax-deferral experts; and lobbying Congress. As I wrote on this page earlier this year (“The 30-Cent Tax Premium,” April 18), for every dollar of business and personal income taxes paid, some 30 cents in out-of-pocket expenses also were paid to comply with the tax code. Under 9-9-9, these expenses would plummet without a penny being lost to the U.S. Treasury. It’s a win-win.
A static revenue-neutral tax change requires static winners and losers. And this 9-9-9 plan has made certain that even on static terms those below the poverty line will be better off—period. Once the dynamics take hold, many of those below the poverty line will find good jobs and thus will rise above the poverty line and start paying taxes.
This is the type of tax increase I wholeheartedly support. I support collecting more in taxes from people with high incomes who choose to actually pay taxes at lower tax rates than use lawyers and accountants to avoid taxes at higher tax rates. Some tax revenues at low tax rates is a heckuva lot better than no tax revenues at high tax rates.
While the 9-9-9 plan has captured people’s imaginations at this moment, it’s not all that different from California Gov. Jerry Brown’s 13% flat tax when he ran for president in 1992. As you may recall, he came in second behind Bill Clinton in the Democratic Party primary.
In 1986, President Reagan passed a major tax-reform bill that lowered to 28% from 50% the top marginal personal income tax rate. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 also raised the lowest marginal income tax rate to 15% from 11% and closed many loopholes, making for a flatter tax structure. Reagan’s bill passed the Senate in a landslide 97-to-3 vote. Who says a flat tax can’t be a bipartisan proposal?
Still, a number of my fellow economists don’t like the retail sales component of the 9-9-9 plan. They argue that, once in place, the retail rate could be raised to the moon. They are correct, but what they miss is that any tax could be instituted in the future at a higher rate. If I could figure a way to stop future Congresses from ever raising taxes I’d do it every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Until then, let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Discuss.
****
update: The reason I kept saying Cain’s plan, regardless of the particulars, was important is that it has us talking about a tax code in need of reform. Similarly, I’ve argued that the GOP should take away the Dem’s and Obama’s class warfare attack strategy by proposing a flat tax — which would get rid of “loopholes in the tax code” exploited by millionaires and billionaires and make sure everybody had “skin in the game.”
Cain got the ball rolling. Next up: Perry, who will announce plans for a flat tax.
One question: Why does a Former Federal Tax Attorney, ad nauseum, not understand this?
The “empowerment zones” (which I take to be the mechanism for the exemption Laffer cites “But the plan exempts from any tax people below the poverty line.”) remain as a testament to something or other though? I mean, they’re a widget emplaced to adjust something, evidently something suspiciously similar to what would otherwise be a heavier burden on lowest income taxpayers. But will a comparable (though smaller) relative burden lay on the middle-income taxpayers as well? The answer, without proof, seems to be no. Yet, suspicions remain.
Mmm. I dunno. I like the idea of a 9% income tax. But 9% sales tax on the price of a home or a car is a serious amount of money. I’m guessing it might stifle sales. It certainly would for us.
To be honest, I’m not trilled with the idea of creating a national sales tax. California has a state sales tax of around 10%, and a national one would bring it up to 19%. That’s pretty significant when you go shopping for a big ticket item like a refrigerator or car. Plus I share the suspicion it would never go away, only go higher.
Here’s the pdf Scoring Report from Cain’s website. And here, the pdf Scoring Tables.
Assuming that neither Cain or Perry are pandering to the crowd — which if the crowd will elect such a candidate, whoopee! — we finally have us two real candidates.
Real tax reform is at least a modicum of liberty regained. This is no small thing.
Next step? Monetary reform. I mean, we can do it to it or it’ll do it to us.
Let it. Let it hurt like hell. That’s one of its strongest features.
In some thread or another I was making this very same point a couple days ago.
That doesn’t mean I’m super awesome, it means that this is a rather obvious truth. At the same time, the difference between a state and a federal tax is also an obvious truth and people were playing dumb about that in the debate last night as well.
I like the idea of a 0% income tax and twice 9% on corporations.
Why corporations again JHo?
I’ll take Cain. But on the issues and on policy, I find myself more in agreement with Perry than Cain. My ideal, the flat tax, as opposed to this Fair tax/sales tax business I am very leery of and do not care much for being one example.
Because when JHo doesn’t want his taxes to hurt like hell, he wants them hidden [grin].
“I like the idea of a 0% income tax and twice 9% on corporations.”
I don’t. Most of us get our paychecks from one corporation or another. If you overtax them, you’ll still end up with the same amount of take-home pay, but the uninformed would be inclined to blame the corporation for this rather than the government – the actual responsible party.
Also, it allows the government to raise the tax rate fairly easily, again blaming the corporations for the government’s ineptitude.
“That doesn’t mean I’m super awesome, it means that this is a rather obvious truth. “
Aww, quit being modest.
Seriously, while it is true any tax can be raised, this is a whole new tax never before levied. A pure flat tax can be raised too, I know that, but a national sales tax is something in addition, that would be very hard to lose once allowed.
Oh, I have a a question too. By Bachmanns definition of a VAT tax, with regard to her objection to 9-9-9, wouldn’t income tax be considered a VAT? I mean in each stage of production, taxes are added to the final product.
Just asking…
I would like to see a 23% tax on business. On the gross, so there is no bullshit arguing over expenses and deductions, and only at the retail level so there are no embedded taxes.
I like the Flat Tax because it simplifies the job of filing, and should eliminate 99% (heh) of the reasons why people get audited, and therefore 99% (heh) of all audits. The only people I can think of who would have a legitimate objection to it would be tax preparers, whose jobs are seasonal anyway even when they’re not being destroyed by technology like Alderaan by the Death Star.
The FairTax is inviting because it means doing away with the IRS altogether, but there will still be compliance costs and audits — just not against individuals.
Yes, it is a new revenue stream, Lee, without the elimination of another. I think that is a valid concern. And, politically, I think it might make more sense to go directly to phase two (whatever it might be, 100% sales tax or 100% income tax) because you only have so much political capital to spend. It seems overly optimistic to me to think that we’ll achieve two separate radical tax reforms in a relatively short time.
It’s the concern about increases in rates that I consider a universal condition of taxes schemes and not a specific condition of any one of them. Both a flat and a fair tax can be increased by future Congresses as well.
Well, there’s yer trouble.
Yes, it’s a new revenue stream, Lee, but it’s designed to do away with a number of other streams.
One redeeming feature of a sales-type tax is that raising it becomes a lot tougher. You would have to raise, literally, the taxes of every single voter who buys things. Which is all of them. No more playing off one (larger, more vocal) group against another (significantly smaller, less vocal) group.
Does it outweigh the other, non-redeeming features? Not sure yet.
“It’s the concern about increases in rates that I consider a universal condition of taxes schemes and not a specific condition of any one of them”
I agree bh, and I think Cain should emphasize a BBA as a crucial element of his 9-9-9 plan, along with the benefits of the resulting loss of influence on politicians by lobbyists. He mentions these things, but I think he needs to make them more central to his selling of the plan.
Tax nicely runs deep to the purpose of government as such, and in our order of government, directly to the very foundation of our principles, namely what we’ve termed natural, unalienable rights. Right to life? Yes. Right to the means to preserve that life? Yes. Means? Taxes.
Bang.
But you’d have the savings from a lower income tax to pay the sales tax.
Why is this so difficult for putative conservatives to understand? Or is it me who is missing something?
9-9-9 replaces the federal tax structure. The federal tax structure doesn’t have anything to do with state sales taxes. If you have a state sales tax, you still pay it. If you don’t, you don’t. Additional national sales tax is a portion of the replacement revenue in light of the replacement of the current federal tax code. Yes? No?
Yes.
Why is this so difficult for putative conservatives to understand?
Well if it makes no difference, why does it matter?
Obviously things will be different. The trick is trying to imagine all the ways how. Devil is in the details. These DC types are crafty and they will corrupt anything and screw you in the details.
Not only would you have more money to pay that federal sales tax (through lowered income taxes), the corporate tax would also be lower so the product itself would cost less before the national sales tax was then applied to it.
More pointedly, sdferr, why personal income tax, with all that entails, as argued vociferously by … the right.
I mean no snark; I mean to raise a perspective not explored in decades, not in any substance.
“Yes, it’s a new revenue stream, Lee, but it’s designed to do away with a number of other streams.”
OK, but have you ever seen a revenue stream done away with?
If the plan was adopted in total overnight, I’m sure it would be better than what we have now, I’m just very skeptical about the process and the reality of Washington, regardless of who we get for president.
I’d be much more optimistic if we elect a majority conservative(as opposed to republican) congress as well as a conservative president, but I’m too old to believe that before I see it.
I was wondering about this, so I want to the plan and checked.
California has a state sales tax of around 10%, and a national one would bring it up to 19%.
But let me see if I am getting Cain’s argument. The corporations that are selling you those refrigerators are currently paying a 35% tax rate. If that tax rate goes down to 9%, the evil capitalists will just stuff all those windfall profits into their matresses. Except…they are used to operating at their current levels of profitability, and as much as they’d like to keep the new profit levels, if they cut their prices just a little bit, they can expand their market share, and make even more money. Of course the competition sees this price cut and (assuming we are in a non-crony market segment) the competitive pressures push the price of the product down until the corporations return to their current levels of after-tax profitability.
Let’s see. Assume a current tax system $1000 refrigerator retail, $500 wholesale, assume 25% taxable net = $125, 35% tax leaves $81.25 profit. Keeping that same amount of after-tax profit, with a 9% corporate tax, would need $90 in before tax profit. That $35 decrease reduces the wholesale price to $465 and the retail price to $930. Now you pay the 9% tax, 83.70, and the final price is $1013.70.
Now let’s look at a high tax state like CA 10%. That $1000 refrigerator retail costs $1100 out the door. Under the new system, that fridge is $930. so $93 State + $83.70 above = $176.70, for a grand total of $1106.70.
It’s roughly a wash revenue wise, as it is designed to be. The implicit taxes are made explicit and transparent.
Can you figure the answer to that question out JHo, based merely on natural unalienable rights?
Or, can you draw the necessary connections from the rights of people as people, to the rights of corporations as corporations? And therein delineate the fundamental equality of the fear of death and the invocation of the means of preservation of life as against that ubiquitous fear as the foundation of government?
Irrelevant. A dollar is a dollar.
“Overtax” set aside as the impersonal, universal phenomenon it already is, this is true, exploding the myth that taking them raises prices over and above today’s system.
I can’t get behind a tax that validates ignorance in the market anymore than you would at the polls. Besides, these ignorants already see the annual personal refund as a windfall.
No different than it is now.
But my argument is that if you must tax either personal income — which are the hours of my life spent surviving and are thus not profits — or corporate profit, the classically liberal preference must be to always protect the individual. Which isn’t even remotely what happens now.
Agreed. He could also get some mileage from pointing out current compliance costs as Laffer does in this piece. (Could also go into the distortions and malinvestment created by the current complexity of the code. Maybe that’s too much to cram into one speech. Not sure.)
No idea, boss.
No.
You tacitly advocate, then, the highest level of burden and complexity. Which is so not like you, LB.
Well, I’ve seen marginal tax rates lowered. But the point is, it has to be, otherwise there’d be no 999 plan.
Exactly. I don’t see the concerns. It’s not like Cain will call for one leg of the plan — the 9% sales tax — without the others, and a consequent replacing of the current code. He wants to public to make that demand of the lawmakers, is the idea — and then eventually he wants to move us, as we grow, toward a fair tax exclusively. Is my understanding.
That’s my understanding as well.
You’re asking me what I asked you — why personal income tax? My answer is for no good reason except to empower those doing crowd control.
So do please validate it. Given the original principles, defend it on principle.
Can you? Should you?
Huh?
Surely you don’t mean that you have no idea where the foundational principles come from?
I mean that I have no idea what that sentence meant.
One point I’m not clear on: Can a national sales tax be implemented under the Constitution as currently written? Or would an amendment be required to allow Congress to levy a sales tax? I could easily get behind an amendment that repealed the Income Tax amendment (16th? 17th? can’t be bothered to google right this sec) and replaced it with a wider-based tax structure. For teh fairness.
(For the sake of argument, let’s presume that Congress and the Executive Branch actually do want to abide by the Constitution. It’s a stretch, I know).
…or for that matter, sdferr, I have no idea how personal income tax, presumably to enrich a legal entity that shares no such legal burden, is defended by way of what I assume is classical liberalism. Wow.
It simply means what Hobbes said it meant. Everyone is equal insofar as everyone fears violent death, and seeks to preserve their lives against it. So begins modern natural right, which is then illustrated to include other rights deriving from that basic position, or crude fact. Such as the means to preservation of that life. And the decisions entailed in effecting those means. And etc., as developed further by Hobbes himself and later thinkers such as Locke and in his turn, Madison. But the locus of decision making, at base — because the locus of the emotion, fear — we notice, is placed in the individual person, not in some fictional corporate entity.
16th, Darth, ratified in 1913.
“You tacitly advocate, then, the highest level of burden and complexity”
That seems an unfair accusation.
More like I’m skeptical of adding a new layer of burden and complexity.
“It’s not like Cain will call for one leg of the plan — the 9% sales tax — without the others, and a consequent replacing of the current code. He wants to public to make that demand of the lawmakers, is the idea — and then eventually he wants to move us, as we grow, toward a fair tax exclusively. Is my understanding.”
That’s my understanding too, and I don’t hate the plan. I mistrust the implementation, and worry about what any of the inevitable compromises to it before it can be passed will to do the integrity of the intentions. If it could be passed in it’s pure form, it would be groovy, I just question if that’s realistic, and wonder if even a slight corruption could make us worse off than before.
Also, I’m skeptical about the part where the feds become a player in every sale. Won’t there have to be a whole new apparatus installed to make sure the feds get their cut? One especially intrusive to states without a sales tax already in place?
As an accusation I agree, it would be. I mean to say that we’ve evolved to vast complexity already and that to allow it to continue as it’s been going, soon becomes impossible to both sustain and withstand. Some say it is already. To argue against a radically new system is then, in effect, to argue for the status quo. Which is not a static thing.
Which the status quo shall virtually add, simply as a function of its perversity.
They’re a player in every household. Replace that.
Channel federal sales tax through the States, if that’s agreed to make sense — the engines already exist in most cases.
But abolish virtually all of the current system and code. The simplicity is breathtaking.
“To argue against a radically new system is then, in effect, to argue for the status quo”
I’m not arguing against a radically new system, I’m questioning the wisdom of one part of the proposed new system.
Believe me, I’m all for simplifying the tax code with a fair tax.
“They’re a player in every household. Replace that.”
Indeed. I’m just not sure you do that through allowing them new avenues to your business.
Anyway, we all hate the present tax code, and wished it were different. But that’s not really our problem. We all know it’s the spending we have to worry about, and even Ron Paul, bless his stingy little heart, comes up short. Cut a trillion? That leaves us with what, half a trillion yearly deficits?
A powerful BBA tying spending to a percentage of GNP needs to be the second priority of all these guys, and none are really championing it.
Two things you could do immediately that would redound to the benefit of classical liberals/constitutional conservatives:
End withholding
Move Tax day from mid April to mid- to late October.
laffer “,a new 9% national tax on retail sales…. and for his sales tax $8.3 trillion.”
de rugy “In 2010, overall U.S. retail sales amounted to $3.92 trillion,”
Link
who’s number is right?
…or for that matter, sdferr, I have no idea how personal income tax, presumably to enrich a legal entity that shares no such legal burden, is defended by way of what I assume is classical liberalism.
My only defense of it is due to my understanding (which could be wrong) that this is a stepping stone on the way to a flat tax; one which acknowledges the impossibility of floating a 20-some percent sales tax as a first step. As mentioned earlier, it also has the (practical; not principled) advantages of being transparent, painful, and universal, and therefore unsuited to manipulation.
Though not ideal, it would be a damn sight better than the system we have now. And if it allows us to reframe the terms of the debate over taxes and liberty, and evolve to a strictly consumption-based tax scheme, then we win.
My .02 is that all taxes should be paid directly by the voter in some form- Sales, property, income, net worth, capitation, cup size, whatever.
Pushing the tax burden off the voter to a third party payer, I mean Corporation, hides the true cost of government from the voter. That seems to me to be the primary cause of the situation we now find ourselves in, demanding more government than we (as a society, not any of us personally) are willing to pay for.
Price discovery!
And? How does adding thousands to the voter’s pocket and driving up his everyday costs go unnoticed?
But we talk about starting small and moving back toward sanity and liberty in steps, right? If a solely corporate tax does go unnoticed, it will only until such time as the Crony Socialist Capitalists running/ruining the game turn their not inconsiderable lobbying guns on the government … and on each other, leaving the individual free and unencumbered, but with a whole new view on the corruption at the top.
I bet that won’t go unnoticed.
Let that system then crumble too (the one we’re in without question will). It will turn into what has been raised more than a few times on this blog, the consensus being I think it’s safe to say, some Cloward-Piveny bullshit.
And when that political blood is shed by the oceans, then maybe we wise up and institute just a national sales tax. Nothing more, nothing less. A direct, fair, linear, completely exposed, and most painful tax that also leaves the individual freed and the politician under pressure.
I ask again, by what principle is the personal income tax of 1913 validated? There may be one but I know I’ve never found it. I have found many that directly impair the individual in a land built on and by his liberty.
From your pdf link.
This would be the same as what the “Fair tax” does and perhaps a way to get started on the road to it.
So your idea is to desire Cloward-Piven then JHo? And here I thought the better idea was to avoid that altogether?
Good get geoffb. I have yet to read the pdf in full, but don’t recall having seen a refundable credit mentioned in the short-form explanatory blurbs at Cain’s website. If they aren’t mentioned prominently, it might be well they should be.
Did I say that, sdferr? Or is your incessant ankle-biting just that.
I said the system — all seventy-five thousand pages of tax code and a GDP set to fall below debt this month and all quarter quadrillion of debt and obligations — cannot stand.
What follows it, perhaps, could be a return to sanity, when the voter says enough and pushes taxation onto the impersonal intermediary that’s exposed him to so much liability and cost. Think Immelt or Bernancke or the like if it helps clarify this point for you.
And when that, maybe, turns into open corporate warefare, well, then maybe we get a single consumption tax and finally be done with it.
I mean, if 999 is simply not feasible because folks can’t possibly see how it replaces our current mess, then we stay in this current mess, at least until it fails, and then it’s anybody’s guess.
Etc., etc. Which is about what I said, which you somehow read as: JHo = bring on the CP.
I thought you said “Let that system then crumble too. . .”, where “that system” meant solely taxing corporations?
Are my untoward questions mere ankle biting because I’m simply such a Lilliputian to your Gigantic Lemuelness, JHo? Or are you sometimes confusing, or possibly even inconsistent, maybe?
“But you’d have the savings from a lower income tax to pay the sales tax.
Why is this so difficult for putative conservatives to understand? Or is it me who is missing something?”
It’s not difficult to understand. It just hurts when you get hit with the price tag. If you want to buy a $300,000 house, and you have to give the state $25,000 and the federal government another $30,000 just to do so, it might make one think twice.
I’m fairly cheap though, so this may only ring true for me.
if its a used $300,000 house under 999 the fed. tax is $0.00.
I’m typing this with my phone so forgive me for typos or overlooking/repeating someone else’s coment.
Here’s the Danger plan:
6% sales
9% personal
12% business/corporate
What should be emphasized is that a revenue stream IS being eliminated; the payroll/social security tax, which is a reduction of taxes both on individuals and businesses.
Oh, you’re just a pest because of noisy, pointless stuff like this, sdferr. After posting a nice word salad and then putting words in my mouth, of course.
We have to think through what the posited “$300,000” future house means though, since we’re in essence comparing a future house with posited value “$300,000” to a current house valued $300,000, which latter current value already contains tens if not hundreds of taxes already paid but projected for elimination in the hypothetical future house. It’s kind of like backing out the inflated change in value of current dollars to past dollars. So that, theoretically, the future “$300,000” house would be much more valuable in fact, or comparable to a much less valuable house in present terms, terms quite possibly near to or the same as the ultimate sales-tax to be paid.
“What should be emphasized is that a revenue stream IS being eliminated; the payroll/social security tax”
along with the stupid notion that you make “investments” into ss.
So it’s my fault you begin with insults like ankle-biter then JHo, but all the more so when the insult comes back to bite you? Damn, seems somehow asymmetrical.
“, you’re just a pest because of noisy, pointless stuff like this”
bravo
I dont know if my #s are perfect but the shift is designed around Kevin’s (and a lot of other people’s) “sticker shock” type concern.
Honest question Danger. What’s the difference in personal tax, and payroll tax?
Cease fire you two (don’t make me come in there;)
Lee
I probably shouldn’t use the “payroll” term because it is really the FICA and medicare taxes; which are eliminated in Cain’s plan.
hello darkness my old friend
I believe those taxes add up to 15% of a persons income. 7.5% contributed by the individual and 7.5% from the employer.
“7.5% contributed by the individual and 7.5% from the employer.”
7.5% from the employer is a vat on employees!
don’t vat me bro
Sorry feets but I’m trumping your mood setter with:
this little light of mine… (insert your own dadgum utube link, I’M ON MY PHONE PEOPLE!!! ;)
gimme gas for my ford keep me truckin for the lord
“Newrouter said: if its a used $300,000 house under 999 the fed. tax is $0.00.”
Really? I had not heard that. I don’t understand why it’s important that it’s second hand, but at any rate that’s a very big deal. Or as Biden would say, “I hope my opponents get raped.” No wait. As Biden would say, ‘this is a big f’in deal’.
Very large ticket items are the major flaw I see in the 999 thing. Without proof of any kind, I think the number of big ticket sales will decrease. If, as newrouter says, there’s a way around that, consider me interested.
@83
Link
Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is all well and good, but tinkering with the details of revenue collection won’t help a bit if government keeps borrowing 40 cents of every dollar it spends. I’m all for tax reform, but what we really need is spending reform.
yes please more talk about the spending
but all they wanna do is yammer about the errant mexican peoples
Polifact are shitheads. They’re are comparing crab-apples to bat guano to fairy dust.
Let’s take this. National income is $10,000,000,000,000 (ten trillion). Combined expenditures from Federal-State-Local governments are $4,500,000,000,000 (4.5 trillion). Therefore our tax rate overall is 45%. The fact that most of us don’t see much of it because it is hidden away in the prices of goods and services is the only thing that has kept the political class away from having close encounters with piano-wire and lampposts.
@88
“Polifact are shitheads.”
trying to show that the sales tax is on “new” goods. not vouching for polispin.
The individual is paying the corporate tax through the price of the product or service, just as the renter pays the landlord’s property tax. You want to protect the individual? Make sure he knows exactly how much tax he’s paying. Hell, make it 12-12 and drop the corporate tax, AFAIC.
If everyone really knew what the federal government costs us, we wouldn’t have the government we have.
Or 13.5 – 13.5, maybe.
This is supposed to be a bridge to the Fair Tax. That’s Phase 2 of the plan.
I believe those taxes add up to 15% of a persons income. 7.5% contributed by the individual and 7.5% from the employer.
And if you employ yourself, you get to pay both halves. Whee!
you know if you pay 9% on new goods, then 0.0% on used goods. its very “earth friendly”. recycle the taco is our motto.
My personal opinion is that Cain’s notions of what might make good tax law are interesting and all that, but if he were elected President they’d be mostly irrelevant. He can write bills and such, but getting them passed is another thing entirely.
So: not really the president’s job. Still, it’s nice to see some actual attempt at leadership in changing policy, rather than tossing out gifts to people whose votes are for sale.
Exactly so.
“He can write bills and such, but getting them passed is another thing entirely.”
you really think harry reid will be majority speaker in 2013? you think 2010 midterms are a pelosi happening?
No, just saying that it’s not necessary a flip of the cape and an Ole! and have it sail through to the signing desk.
Slart,
You make a good point. His plan it it’s present form probably has little chance of implentation but hopefully it at least leads to broadening the tax base and causes more of us to have some skin in the game.
“and have it sail through to the signing desk.”
yea what happen in 1980 then in 1981 whatever . you be pushing the wrong overton window.
Doesn’t matter. It still has to go through the sausage grinder to become law. Now if there’s 60 seats in the Senate and we still have the house, the grind may be coarse, but it’s gotta get ground nonetheless.
Yeah. A big fat bill you have to write the check for tends to focus the mind.
“and we still have the house, ”
peblowsi strong these days yes?
tax reform is a great thing to put on the agenda and it could really a lot help America but who was it that called Mr. Cain this cycle’s Steve Forbes? I think it may have been Mr. Jeff but anyway yeah it’s beginning to feel like that.
If Cain continues to craft such a narrow agenda – tax reform plus iron fist on border – it’s gonna be really hard not to see him as campaigning for Wall Street Romney’s veep slot.
It’s a good point happyfeet. Mr. Cain would do well to return to the underlying principles of taxation couched in the meaning of the Declaration and the Constitution, reminding people what it is, what it was, that made the United States the only successful and ongoing politically revolutionary act in the history of the world. None of these jokers, save perhaps Gingrich every now and then, does nearly enough with the bounty of political philosophy bequeathed to us all.
Yes – that would be compelling and charming and not a bit helpful for Wall Street Romney. Perry and Cain can both talk about principles with integrity and authority. This is something Wall Street Romney can’t do, and this is why he wants the focus on the mexicans and the religion kerfuffles and how bad (duh) Obama sucks ass and the mexicans and the mexicans.
Well… Perry hasn’t actually demonstrated that he can talk about *anything* but you know what I mean.
I do know (what you meant), if Gov. Perry knows too. Mr. Cain, I suspect, precisely on account of the competitive difficulties I imagine he has fought over his life, struggling to make himself free in the fullest sense of the term, knows well what it means. We, on the other hand, only have to look to the first paragraph of the first Federalist Paper, to see the thing in action:
Reagan looked there, I think, to find the source of his time for choosing speech. We’re in the one country in the world where it is always a time for choosing to be free.
yes yes yes
2012 is the first year of the rest of our little country’s life
“To the People of the State of New York:”
dude that’s funny what with the state of bloomdumb, sharpton, dinkins, lindsay, stupid demonrat f((ks
It doesn’t follow that protecting the individual means keeping him saddled with the massive bureaucracy he’s already saddled with, but it makes sense to move to a strictly corporate profit tax for those who just insist on something like that bureaucracy .
Or for those who do not, a national consumption tax would best fulfill your requirement. And be fair, naturally progressive, and amazingly efficient, vastly more so than tens of thousands of pages of code and the bullshit tiering we have now.
Do you know what I find insulting? No, no you don’t. Still.
Ha! Hauteur befits you JHo. On account of the egalitarianism, no doubt.
In other words, you don’t.