Herman Cain, former Godfather's Pizza CEO and Republican presidential candidate, has seen an enormous and inexplicable surge in the polls recently. Speaking in a booming Georgia drawl and delivering his conservative talking points like advertising slogans, Cain has focused his campaign around his 9-9-9 plan for economic growth. The plan proposes a complete repeal of the current U.S. tax system, replacing all forms of taxation with three flat taxes: a 9 percent personal income tax, a 9 percent corporate income tax and a 9 percent national sales tax.
And that's it. No capital gains tax, no payroll tax, no estate tax—just three taxes to pay for the entire federal government. On Cain's campaign website, the 9-9-9 plan is described as ""fair, simple, efficient, neutral and transparent."" These adjectives, frequently used by fair-tax or flat-tax advocates to justify imposing a single tax on all Americans, are all misplaced. The 9-9-9 plan is nothing less than a blatant declaration of class warfare.
First of all, Cain's plan is clearly not ""fair."" A 9 percent income tax applied to all citizens would mean that billionaires and janitors would pay the exact same proportion of their earnings. Cain's website states that the plan would eliminate ""nearly all deductions."" This implies that the countless low-income families in America, comprising 47 percent of the population, who receive only marginal relief by not paying income taxes currently would be forced to pay more taxes. The morality of this plan is absurd; the 9 percent income tax is an obvious giveaway to the richest in this country. After finally reaching a point where billionaires like Warren Buffett publicly state their willingness to pay more in taxes, it's depressing that Cain would try to reverse the tax conversation to such an extreme.
More importantly, Cain's sales tax establishes a dangerously regressive burden on low-income Americans. A 9 percent sales tax on basic items like bread and milk means much more to someone making $30,000 a year than someone making $30 million a year. It especially means more when you consider that Cain's 9 percent sales tax would be added to existing state sales taxes. In New Hampshire, a state with no sales tax, this would be tolerable. In Alabama, sales tax is 10 percent in some places, and adding Cain's national sales tax will result in a 19 percent tax on groceries, clothing and medicine. Cain's argument that the complete reign of the free market will resolve these potentially excruciating prices is unfounded.
Although Cain asserts that his plan would be revenue neutral, several studies have shown this is not the case. Bloomberg News calculated that Cain's tax plan would generate only $2 trillion per year in revenue, $200 billion less than what the United States actually needs to raise. Other estimates have pegged the potential revenue as low as $1.3 trillion. It's important to note that Cain's website implies his support for the complete elimination of entitlement programs, arguing that ""state, cities, churches, charities and businesses,"" should provide aid to the poor instead of the federal government. Admittedly, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security do comprise a large portion of the U.S. budget, and it's possible that eliminating them would make the lower revenue generated by 9-9-9 a feasible way to fund the federal government.
But who wants to live in that version of America? How can a presidential candidate seriously advocate a tax system that allows corporations to keep 100 percent of their international profits while forcing the poor to pay for all of their medicine and food? And how can anyone who isn't wealthy actually support this candidate?
Herman Cain's reign atop the polls will probably vanish soon, as Republicans finally accept the fact that Mitt Romney is the only candidate with a serious chance at beating President Barack Obama. But if Cain becomes the ""anti-Romney"" in the primaries like some pundits are predicting, keep one thing in mind: Unless you're rich, Herman Cain's America will cripple you.
Ryan Waal is a sophomore majoring in English. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
