well, first of all, if we cc ed the pulitzer xhirkts as our reporter amanda turkel did for the simcity piece we put up. it was sort of a bizarre coincidence, and we re wondering if rich lowrie is a secret gamer. this 9-9-9 plan, more coverage for this plan than any proposal that will never be enacted into law i think in the history of politics. it s obviously dead on arrival both because conservatives like grover norquist don t like it. you can easily demonize it the sales tax component of it as was demonized as a tax on common goods like milk or beer or bread or anything like that. and if herman cain were to get through the primary and into the general election, democrats would likely love this because they can say, you re lowering the personal income tax rates for the wealthiest americans down to 9%. it s a huge giveaway to the wealthy. so this thing is a nice simple gimmick that has vaulted mr. cain up into the ranks of the republican primary election but it s so unserious and s
now, that would bankrupt most american businesses because the 9-9-9 plan does not allow them to deduct what is the biggest expense for most businesses. salaries. you can t deduct salaries. nor does the 9-9-9 plan allow businesses to deduct rent or attorney s fees or accountant s fees or all sorts of regular costs of doing business. the 9-9-9 plan does not understand the difference between a company s revenue and that company s profit. it is impossible to calculate a company s profit without accounting for, that is to say, deducting all of its real, legitimate expenses. under the 9-9-9 plan companies that lose money, they make no profit at all, would still have to pay taxes on their non-existent profit. cain s version of the 9% tax on
9-9-9 plan? i like a lot of it. what do you think? i heard a little bit of what you think. if you don t like cain s 9-9-9 plan, what do you want to propose? right now the tax system s broke. don t you agree? it s a complicated tax system that we have now, joe, obviously. but what herman cain s finding out is changing it is as complicated as trying to add to the ridiculously complicated version we have now. but let me ask you about it because what is the median income in that district that you d be running in? do you know? i don t mean it as a gotcha question, but do you know that? have you looked that up? well, actually, i do. i was having some things with the school board. right around $40,000 a year is the median income. yeah, it s 43. and every estimate of the herman cain 9-9-9 plan indicates that people in, say, making around $43,000, families with that kind of income, would actually pay $2,000 to $4,000 more in taxation, especially because of that very heavy new sales tax
businesses would actually be a huge tax increase on most businesses. it would in fact be a business-killing tax. it would put some companies out of business, which means it would be a jobs-killing tax. in 1819 chief justice john marshall famously wrote in a supreme court decision, the power to tax involves the power to destroy. herman cain shows you exactly how to do that. with his ill-conceived 9% corporate tax that does not allow corporations to include reasonable and normal business expenses. i m not talking about their wild complicated tax loopholes. i m talking about all normal reasonable business expenses. they re not allowed to be deducted under the 9-9-9 plan. now, if a democrat had proposed
it levels the playing field. this is how we deal with china. okay. first of all, that doesn t level the playing field. that tilts the playing field in favor of american products over foreign products. now, i know it s asking way too much of the herman cain campaign or most of the campaign press to know that that would be in violation of the international trade rules enforced by the world trade organization. those rules are supported by the united states because without them we would risk being unable to sell our products anywhere in the world. what herman cain wants to do is put a tax on chinese goods or any foreign goods that any american corporation purchases. he s not calling it a tariff, but that is what it is. and it violates every trade agreement we have in american law now, including the three that congress finally passed