HERMAN CAIN: HOW DID HE DO (slow-witted Gregory) More like dumb

Powerline ^ | October 16,2011 | JOHN HINDERAKER

[Hojczyk]

Reading the transcript, what strikes me is how slow-witted Gregory was. Repeatedly, Cain makes a simple, clear point, but Gregory doesn’t seem to get it. This became almost painful during an exchange about state sales taxes:

MR. GREGORY: The other defect in the plan comes from fellow conservatives who say, “You’ve got some problems here.” … “The real political defect,” the Journal writes, “of the Cain plan is that it imposes a new national sales tax while maintaining the income tax. … A 9 percent rate when combined with state and local levies would mean a tax on goods of 17 percent or more in many places. The cries for exemptions would be great.”

MR. CAIN: Don’t combine it with state taxes. This doesn’t address state taxes. If you add them together, yes, you’ll get that number. This is a replacement structure. These are replacement taxes. They’re not on top of anything.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. CAIN: We replace capital gains tax. We replace the payroll tax. We replace corporate income tax, replace personal income tax, and replace the death tax. It is a replacement tax structure.

MR. GREGORY: But where do state taxes go? You’re saying they’re going to be repealed?

MR. CAIN: If you–with the current structure, you have state taxes, right? So with this new structure, you’re still going to have taxes–state taxes. That is muddying the water.

MR. GREGORY: How so?

MR. CAIN: Because today, under the current tax code, state taxes are there if they have it. If they don’t have a state taxes, they don’t have it. It has nothing to do with this replacement structure for the federal tax code.

[xuberalles]

[C. Edmund Wright]

Thanks for posting this. My main thought, as I watched the interview, was just how stupid David Gregory is. Wow, how do you get a network gig while being an economic retard? Sheesh.

[jobim]

Cain's entire response to all of Gregory's attack questions was textbook effective: crisp, clear, good-natured, firm.

His is the most winning style since Reagan.

[Graybeard58]

MR. CAIN: Because today, under the current tax code, state taxes are there if they have it. If they don’t have a state taxes, they don’t have it. It has nothing to do with this replacement structure for the federal tax code.

Not that difficult to understand, unless you're a flaming liberal.

[TigersEye]

David Gregory (punk) isn’t just economically retarded there. He doesn’t seem to grasp elementary school mathematics.

[TigersEye]

Great poster! Just saved that for printing.

[xuberalles]

Thanks.

[nascarnation]

I agree.

Clarence Thomas with a charisma implant.

[atc23]

David Gregory has always impressed me -

As a slack jawed, rheumy eyed, kool - aid swilling, jackhandle witted stumblebum. A perfect, castrati compliment to the granola munching lesbian simps that populate the rest of that network.

He should move to Fox News where his imbicilic blathering would only bring improvement over there.

[sklar]

MR. CAIN: First, they’re missing one very critical point about the sales tax. It wasn’t even mentioned in that analysis that you read. On the price of goods, there are invisible taxes that are built into everything we buy. We’ll simply–those invisible taxes are going to go away. And we’re replacing them with a 9 percent visible tax. For example, take a loaf of bread. The farmer pays taxes on his profits. The company that makes the flour, the baker, the delivery man. By the time that loaf of bread gets to the grocery store, there are a series of invisible taxes, which are also called embedded taxes. So, in reality, those taxes go away and so the price of goods don’t go up.

But don't forget, under 9-9-9, when the flour maker buys wheat from the farmer, he'll be paying a 9% Fed Sales Tax that HE NEVER PAID BEFORE.

When the baker buys flour from the flour maker, he'll be paying a 9% Fed Sales Tax that HE NEVER PAID BEFORE. etc etc etc.

These taxes will be tacked on to the price of product.

Additionally, when the IRS Code goes away, every business in the production chain will lose their deductions for cost of doing business. THOSE prices will have to be tacked onto product as well.

I disagree with Cain's core premise, that 9-9-9 will make prices go down.

[justsaynomore]

I don’t know but I watched Chris Matthews on Jeopardy once (why I inflicted that on myself, I’ll never know) but he was a complete imbecile.

My kids were answering questions he didn’t know.

[Happy Rain]

Takes a real fearless conservative to make DNC Dave look THAT stupid.

And thank Gawd we finally have a thread about Herman that the desperate Perry Cain-haters didn't put up.

[mazda77]

I say not in that Gregory knows exactly what he was doing in trying to get Cain to bite on the premise of his questions. Gregory operates with the liberal conviction that the grand majority of people watching rabbit ears TV are just about as capable of understanding common sense economic issues as they are of being able to balance a checkbook.

His liberal establishment friends have made sure that neither is a common trait of those who exit government schools and their one size fits all worldview will be their undoing. It actually seemed that Gregory started to warm up to him late in the interview because he figured out that Herman was unflappable, at least on this day. He’ll try to get him again on the low side of his bio-rythem.

[TigersEye]

But don't forget, under 9-9-9, when the flour maker buys wheat from the farmer, he'll be paying a 9% Fed Sales Tax that HE NEVER PAID BEFORE.

No, Cain has said there would be no taxes on that or your other examples. The tax would be on retail sales and those are not retail sales.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

You're assuming that every step of the production process would be taxed at 9%. If the 9% is anything like a value-added tax, the taxes would not accumulate, like you're assuming. For instance, your bread maker would get a credit for the taxes paid by the farmer ... and so on. In that way, the total tax (paid in the end by the consumer) would be 9%.

[TigersEye]

Oh, I know that Gregory (punk) was playing games. But he wants us to take him at face value so I took him at face value and found him to be dumber than a bag of hammers.

I do know that the truth is that David Gregory (punk) is a disingenuous, lying sack of something entirely different than hammers.

[gardencatz]

The law can’t be written to specify the tax is only for certain RETAIL purchases. And anyone who thinks anybody’s plan is going to make it through congress unchanged is naive at best. To add taxes through the manufacturing process is a VAT tax and that’s NOT what he’s proposing. There’s nothing wrong with being opposed to this plan but please let’s discuss it as he really intends it to be. We’ve GOT to be adults and honest with each other about these things and not spread misinformation. This election is too important. Discuss your objections to the 9% sales tax as it is, don’t add components that aren’t there. If you’re not sure how it’s supposed to work then go to his website or read other sources that talk about it.

Cindie

Cindie

[TigersEye]

Actually Cain has said that there would be no taxes on business purchases so no VAT and no sales tax.

[SpringtoLiberty]

You are completely wrong. There will only be a 9% retail sales tax. RETAIL