Was Herman Cain against a national sales tax before he was for it?

Hotair ^ | 11/06/2011 | Ed Morrissey

[not2worry]

This is just a talking point the anti-Cain people are using.

There is a difference between a VAT and a National Sales Tax.

I wish they would google it and understand the difference.

[EEGator]

It is a big improvement. Just don’t let the fools stress you out. Take care.

[justsaynomore]

999 replaces:
Income
Payroll
Death
Corporate
Investment Dividends

We currently pay embedded taxes - 22% of everything we buy - because of high corporate taxes. Current corporate rates are up to 35%. Cain’s plan REPLACES that with 9%.

Therefore those embedded taxes will decrease significantly, but there will still be residue, because businesses are not going from 35% to 0%, they are going to 9%. Then with the transition to Fair Tax, then corporate taxes go away completely.

[UnwashedPeasant]

"The worst idea is a proposed national sales tax, which is a disguised VAT (value added tax) on top of everything we already pay in federal taxes…"

Typical. The writer is using a boneheaded misinterpretation of Cain's words as a strawman.

1. Cain is not proposing a VAT disguised as a sales tax.
2. Cain is not proposing a new tax as an addition to current taxes.

[justsaynomore]

Marty60, you need to sit down and plug in your numbers to these calculators. All this plan is doing is taking taxes you don’t see and replacing them with lower rate taxes that are visible.

Income: http://raisingcain2012.wordpress.com/about/
Sales Tax: http://www.999calculator.net

[Jim Robinson]

999 reduces taxes, eliminates much of the hidden built-in tax (social security and payroll taxes, for example) and removes them from the cost structure which will lower the cost of all products and services manufactured, produced or delivered in America (or exported), spur the economy, and help put our people back to work. It doesn’t double taxes.

[UnwashedPeasant]

"Politicians love 'new revenue streams', and once they get opened up they rarely ever get closed."

You are right. Cain's 999 plan closes many tax revenue streams. That is why establishment politicians are anti-Cain.

[plain talk]

Does it really matter? as long as he is for lower taxes that is all I care about in a presidential candidate when it comes to taxes.

[sickoflibs]

I thought this one was cleared up long ago. He was for a national sales (fair) tax, and against a VAT tax. He said it in the April 2010 editorial which I posted recently because of this crap. He clearly knows the difference between them unlike a few idiots here.

: The cowardly tax(April 2010 Cain says he opposes a VAT and and is for a National sales tax) THE New Voice, Inc ^ | April 12, 2010 | Herman Cain

[Maelstorm]

I agree. It was but old lies never die of late especially among some ‘conservatives’.

[justsaynomore]

I posted it in post 14 as well

[sickoflibs]

Cain :” The VAT is also a cowardly tax increase because these same clueless and uninformed voters will easily blame the greedy retailers for raising the prices of their merchandise. And for the 50 percent of the taxpayers who have figured out how not to pay any taxes at all, this administration and Congress will find a way to give them a VAT exemption.........
The answer to reducing the deficit and supercharging the economy is to replace the tax code with the single-rate Fair Tax(National Sales Tax).
VAT: The cowardly tax , THE New Voice, Inc ^ | April 12, 2010 | Herman Cain ( said he is for the Fair/National sales tax instead of a VAT)

[goldstategop]

Every conservative should want to reduce taxes.

Our tax structure is too complex, everything costs more than should and it reduces our competitiveness abroad.

Simplifying it as Cain has proposed is only the first step. But its an important one.

Too many conservatives want to get every thing done at once. That is guaranteed to fail.

The enemy of the good is insistence on the perfect. The Left has gotten everything it wanted incrementally.

We need to learn to do the same. Ronald Reagan said about conservatives who wanted 100%, it isn’t possible. I’ll take what I can get now and fight for the rest later.

[sickoflibs]

Cain :” The VAT is also a cowardly tax increase because these same clueless and uninformed voters will easily blame the greedy retailers for raising the prices of their merchandise. And for the 50 percent of the taxpayers who have figured out how not to pay any taxes at all, this administration and Congress will find a way to give them a VAT exemption.........
The answer to reducing the deficit and supercharging the economy is to replace the tax code with the single-rate Fair Tax(National Sales Tax).
VAT: The cowardly tax , THE New Voice, Inc ^ | April 12, 2010 | Herman Cain ( said he is for the Fair/National sales tax instead of a VAT)

[sickoflibs]

Cain :” The VAT is also a cowardly tax increase because these same clueless and uninformed voters will easily blame the greedy retailers for raising the prices of their merchandise. And for the 50 percent of the taxpayers who have figured out how not to pay any taxes at all, this administration and Congress will find a way to give them a VAT exemption.........
The answer to reducing the deficit and supercharging the economy is to replace the tax code with the single-rate Fair Tax(National Sales Tax).
VAT: The cowardly tax , THE New Voice, Inc ^ | April 12, 2010 | Herman Cain ( said he is for the Fair/National sales tax instead of a VAT)

[Republican Wildcat]

Cain's 999 national sales tax is not added to the current tax model. This is the kind of logic I expect from the DNC

Yes indeed - obviously Cain was responding specifically to the proposal in the Commission's report, not the idea of a retail sales tax. We also went through this nonsense a month or so ago - now it is being recycled again as though it is something new.

[Republican Wildcat]

Yes - here we go again. At least it can be said many here are into recycling.

[newzjunkey]

on top of everything we already pay in federal taxes… What part of 9-9-9 replacing the existing tax code is too complicated for Ed Morrissey to understand?

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Yes - here we go again. At least it can be said many here are into recycling.”

Fire with fire.
See #55, #54, #52

It cant be more obvious.

[goldstategop]

Ed Morrisey like many airhead conservatives does not appear to grasp the fact we can’t change our entire tax system overnight.

If we can’t do it, let’s have the Left continue to confiscate ever increasing amounts of our income! Who can argue with brilliant logic like that?

I maintain this is a first step. Its not the last one. But even if this is all we attain, our tax system will be fairer, simpler and lower in cost than the one we have today.

And that is real reform worth fighting for.