Presidential candidate Herman Cain said this morning that Democrats are on a “mission” to destroy the United States economy, while offering his own 9-9-9 tax overhaul as a plan to create jobs and lower taxes, despite objections to the contrary.
“You think liberals actually seek to do that, that that’s their mission, to destroy the economy?” asked David Gregory of Meet the Press asked Cain, who replied “it is their mission.” Cain rejected the idea that Democratic “mismanagement” weakens the economy, arguing that “they do not believe in a stronger America, in my opinion.”
On the other hand, Cain defended his much-discussed 9-9-9 tax plan, so-called because it would discard and replace the federal tax code with a 9 percent sales tax, a 9 percent income tax, and a 9 percent corporate income tax.
Gregory paraphrased tax analysts who say that “the wealthiest Americans would pay less, the poorest Americans and middle class would pay more,” but Cain “dispute[d] that.” Cain argued that “more people will pay less in taxes, when you consider all the taxes.”
When Gregory pointed out what he called “[an]other defect of the plan” – adding a national sales tax onto the various state sales taxes – Cain said that the tax rate would still be lower than the current rate, because the 9-9-9- plan would eliminate “embedded taxes” and “scare attaxes,” as Cain put it.
Gregory asked Cain planned to “eschew the Washington establishment . . . [like former President] Jimmy Carter,” and even asked Cain if his “slogan is going to be hope and change,” but Cain rejected the Carter analogy and the Obama phrase. Cain said that he could get 9-9-9 through Congress based on “public support and simplicity.”
