If you know one thing about Herman Cain, it’s probably that he used to be the chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza.
If you know two things about him, you are likely to have heard of something called “9-9-9.”
That is the Republican businessman’s shorthand for his tax reform plan. The idea has become the centerpiece of his upstart campaign for president, boosted recently with surprisingly strong showings in opinion polls and a closely watched GOP straw poll in Florida.
Cain uses 9-9-9 like a mantra, promoting the plan in his Southern drawl. It has become so familiar that people sometimes ask him about it on the street.
“That number 9 plan,” a passerby said recently, grasping Cain’s hand as cameras filmed the exchange for an Atlanta television station. Said another man: “It’s refreshing to hear a plan that has some logic.”
Under 9-9-9, Cain proposes replacing the current tax system with a 9 percent corporate tax, a 9 percent personal income tax and a 9 percent national sales tax. He argues that the simple plan would revive the economy by promoting growth, and in his characteristic blunt style asserts that it would free taxpayers from a complicated tax code that has become “the 21st-century version of slavery.”
Tax reform hasn’t played a central role in the 2012 Republican presidential race, with the candidates instead bickering over Social Security and who has a stronger record on the economy. But whether to raise taxes, or reform the tax code, is a big part of the debate over cutting the federal budget deficit.
Cain has said that his plan would collect about the same amount of revenue that now flows into the government, and that it would increase as the economy strengthened. Experts, however, say that is difficult to know because the candidate has given only broad outlines for his proposal, which would allow some credits and deductions, such as a charitable deduction.
Conservative economists say Cain’s reform plan is a good one — in theory. They say it would prevent the government from hindering growth by choosing who receives tax breaks. But they are skeptical that it would get much traction in Congress, and they warn that adopting a national sales tax could open a Pandora’s box. Currently, only states and the District of Columbia can charge a sales tax.
Liberal economists say the plan would shift more of the burden to lower- and middle-income families, the beneficiaries of many of the regulations and deductions that complicate the tax code.
“Mr. Cain’s tax proposal only makes sense if you believe that the problem with the current tax code is that low- and middle-income households have it way too good, and they should give more of their income to those poor Americans making more than half a million dollars a year,” Andrew Fieldhouse, a budget analyst for the liberal Economic Policy Institute, wrote on the think tank’s blog recently.
Still, the 9-9-9 plan has at least two things that other tax plans lack: a catchy slogan worthy of the most popular pizza deal and a charismatic voice to promote it.
Loading...
Comments