agree with your post, can't wait until there are only 2-3 candidates up there to get some more in depth exchanges and not this large group each thinking we care what they have to say when they have no shot at winning

I would like to see Herman Cain win, if only because I'm not sure any of the Republican candidates are appealing enough to beat Obama, even as poor a job as everyone thinks he's done.

I'd be REALLY interested to see how the media covers him in a full election, if their would be any racism directed towards him or if there would be any racism directed towards Obama as people push for a "real black president."

And if he did win... it'd be better then the other republican candidates if only because we won't have to listen to 1000 more op eds about how racism was why Obama's numbers have dropped so poorly and that's why he isn't getting a second term... and that it has nothing to do that he was basically Bush part II on everything important and that if anything the opposite is probably true, he'll survive because of black voting that wouldn't be as numerous for a white candidate.

The 9-9-9 plan sounds a bit bothersome, but I don't actually see it passing.

Actually, the more and more I read it, its pretty freakin' amazing. Its not perfect, but its vastly better than what we have now. Flat tax, sales tax, and business flat tax with very, very few deductions. It gets rid of multiple taxes in the process such as capital gains, death tax, FICA, and other payroll taxes.

Throw in the fact he wants to change social security into a Chilean-style defined benefit plan, and you have a good winner.

I only watched about 1hr, 30 minutes of the debate last night due to a PC error. The fight betwen Romney and Perry was incredible... I think that Anderson Cooper should have given them both knives, and left them to their own devices.

Right now, I'm in Cain and Paul's corner... Although I still wish Johnson would gain some traction. Huntsman and Santorum need to drop out of the race.

Whomever wins needs to pick Gingrich as the VP, because he would tear Biden a new rear end in a debate. Gingrich has already come out and said he wants Lincoln-Douglas style debates, which would be incredible to watch... 3hrs, no moderator, no audience, no rules. Just a time-keeper. THAT would be awesome for the country.

999 will just lead to lower income groups paying more and higher income and big business paying less. It's the perfectly contrived plan: an easy way to appeal to the Greed class without looking like you're directly pandering to them

Closing down loopholes is fine and dandy, but it has to go in a way that is still progressive

The lower income groups are going to be payign more no matter who wins the presidency.

Everyone including Obama has talked about "Broadening the base".

Which is political slang for making more poor people pay taxes and basically raising everyones taxes...

because at the end of the day, you can close all the tax loopholes you want and increase taxes on the rich... and all it's going to do is bring in not nearly enough revenue at the expense of slowing the economy, and in a worse case scenario actually end up needing more revenue then you did before the taxes.

Closing of tax loopholes needs to be budget nuetral.

So for every dollar of taxes Berkshire Hathaway pays, someone who is actually paying the 32%  gets a dollar off.

Here are my thoughts on 999 and tell me if you see the same. I should read more into it but so far I do like a lot of the components.

Many of the people against it say that taxes on the lower and middle class would actually be raised. In a sense I guess you would have to say thats true, but it gets all people paying taxes and having a skin in the game. We all know the a Whopping 47% of Amercians do not pay any federal income tax. That means almost half are not contributing. Having a sales tax ensures a more fair system.

Now tell me your thoughts but here is my thinking on his plan. The corporate tax rate is at 35% currently. Under this plan it would drop to 9%. Now we all know that corporations never just "eat" the cost of the corporate tax burden. They pass that extra expense along to consumers to pay which causes the prices of goods and services to go up, correct? So in essense most of the corporate tax burden gets paid by consumers? isn't that fair to say? ...Now that being the case if the corporate tax burden was dropped to 9% that would be a huge increase in available cash to business which would then allow them to expand, hire workers, and drop prices of goods and services. Therefore, while lower income earners may be now paying more for taxes the overall living cost will become lower for them, because the prices of all goods and services will theoretically drop substantially. This means that under Cain's 999 plan wouldn't it actually help lower income earners due to the drop in prices of goods and services that consumers want, need, and desire?

Prices of goods will rise at point-of-sale. 9% is higher than what i'm used to in Western Pennsylvania, and its even a notch higher than Philadelphia's regionally legendary sales tax

True with a 9% national sales tax prices of goods will rise at point of sale. However, what I am seeing in this plan is that it would allow for the initial prices of goods and services to drop substantially. So you will pay much less for the products and services that consumers purchase before the national sales tax. Even with a 9% sales tax point of sale costs may not be much different from what you already pay for those goods and services now and could possibly be even less. Thats just what I am perceiving so far when I look at how this plan would effect the markets.

At 999, the population growth will stagnate and you'll hardly see highrise buildings.

Why 9-9-9 though?  It doesn't really make any sense other then the fact that it sounds better then another split.

The current Effective US corporate Tax rate is 27.7%

Versus a europeon average of 22.6% and a world wide average of 19.5%

http://www.scribd.com/doc/52966788/Effective-Tax-Rate-Study

Even trying to lure companies to relocate here due to tax rate, something like 16% should be more then satisfactory.   Heck even 20 would well put us on more then even ground with other countries.   9% just seems pointlessly low.

As it is, the current 27.7% brings in about 12% of our revenue, and 9-9-9 is supposed to bring in the same amount of money. 

Meaning the coproate tax would only bring in ~4% under the new plan.

Now a 9% Income tax.... that's inline with what the effective tax rate for a person in the lowest quintile was in the 80's and early 90's.  Interesting actually, if you look at the effective tax rates now vs 1992, every group has seen MASSIVE tax cuts EXCEPT the highest quintile, though anyway...

The average effective Income tax in 2006 was 14.4%

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2009/effective_rates.pdf

Now Income tax makes up about 45% or our revenue.  Meaning it's now 28%.

So when it comes to revenue we're counting on Sales tax to bring in 68% of the federal budget.

Seems like way too much to me and that it would lead the government to focus even harder on stimulating consumption.