Posted on 05/22/2011 10:36:49 AM PDT by GonzoII
CEDAR RAPIDS — America is facing some massive problems, said Herman Cain, and it’s time for politicians and elected officials to be honest about the magnitude of what is before the nation.
Cain highlighted seven separate areas that need to be addressed — a moral crisis, an economic crisis, an energy crisis, an entitlement spending crisis, an immigration crisis, a national security crisis and a deficiency of leadership crisis in Washington, D.C.
“Now, we have other problems, but those are our seven crises — and I stopped at seven because it has sort of a Biblical significance. I like Biblical significance,” he said.
“Those are the seven biggest crises that we face. But here’s the good news: We can face them, and they aren’t going to face themselves.”
While most presidential candidates attend Iowa events with a box of swag comprised of bumper stickers, pamphlets and sign-up sheets for supporters, Cain came to Cedar Rapids with two items — a small tri-fold brochure with a detachable and mailable card for those wanting to donate to his Presidential Exploratory Committee and a 20-page, full-color brochure that lists that contains mini white papers on each of the crisis areas he’s identified. Pages three through 17 of the document, which measures roughly 3 inches wide by six inches long, contains only one photograph amid page after page of text.
Many of the problems before America, he notes, have plenty of “low-hanging fruit” ideas that could begin a move in the correct direction.
“If you think about it, there are a lot of simple and good ideas that come to Washington, D.C. and die because of liberal ideology,” he said.
If elected president, Cain said one of his first self-imposed jobs would be to jump-start the economy — “the biggest thing that we have got to turn around.” Toward that end, he would lower the nation’s highest level of corporate taxes from 35 to 25 percent.
“We are the only country in the world that has not lowered its top corporate tax rate in 15 years,” he said. “How dumb is that?! … And we wonder why jobs are leaving this country. It is all about the tax structure, that’s why jobs are leaving this country.”
Tax rates for America’s highest individual earners, he said, should also be reduced, the Capital Gains tax rate should be taken to zero, and taxes on employers and employees should be taken to zero for a year.
“I know that the liberals are going to say, ‘All you want to do is give tax breaks to the rich.’ That’s their usual class-warfare rhetoric,” he said. “But, you know, when Herman Cain becomes President, I’m going to make a breaking news announcement to all of America: It’s OK to succeed in America.”
And, when the tone has change, Cain says he plans “to put a bow around it” by making his new lowered tax structure permanent.
“We have to get this uncertainty off of this economy,” he said. “I plan to get Congress to do this in the first 90 days of my administration.”
Other items of note in Cain’s brochure:
Labor Unions — “While labor unions once provided a representative body to lobby for fair wages and safe working conditions for employees, the now principally serve as a political mechanism for the Left. Forced unionization through the dishonesty named ‘Employee Free Choice Act,’ or ‘card check,’ would drive up the costs of goods and services, cause hundreds and thousands of jobs to be lost and ultimately, a more powerful system of liberal fundraising to be maintained.”
Entitlement Programs — “Though it might not be politically popular to modernize and eliminate some of our entitlement programs, responsible leaders should be willing to do it all the same. … We must return to free market-based solutions that empower our nation’s workers to take control over their professional and retirement futures.”
Ethanol & Other Energy Subsidies — “Subsidies on agricultural products, like ethanol-producing corn, have become a mechanism for the government to pick and choose industries it favors, while doing little to enhance our ability to harness real alternative energy resources. Instead, we must allow all forms of energy the ability to develop in a free market system.”
Immigration — “Illegal immigration has only exacerbated illegal activity, such as the horrendous crimes of drug smuggling and human trafficking. Illegal immigrants who are repeat offenders are harder to track, making it difficult for law enforcement to prevent crime. Further, weak borders have caused a compounding problem of terrorists assimilating with illegal immigrants, crossing the border with them and entering the U.S.”
Repeal of Health Care Reform — “Patient-centered free market health care reforms have already been developed and introduced in Congress, but they are stuck in committee and can’t get out. With the right leadership we can get them out and get them passed.”
Financial Reform — “We must repeal financial regulatory ‘deform.’ We must enact real reforms that protect the roots of our economic system. We must not compromise them with excessive regulation and the federal government’s ‘pay-to-play’ politics.”
Government Regulation — “We pay for regulations with every bite of food we eat, with every drop of gasoline we put in our cars and with every good or service we obtain. … Alleviating the burdens of cumbersome regulations would be an immediate boost for our weakened economy. It would signal to businesses and investors that the government intends to improve conditions that allow for them to thrive, not to bog them down with additional costs they must inevitably pass on to consumers.”
Education — “A critical component of improving education in our country is to decentralize the federal government’s control over it. … Another way we can put kids first is to offer school choice as a real option for educational competition. This means expanding school vouchers and charter schools.”
I like what I see,The leftie bats were going off the edge on C-Span this morning commenting on Mr Cain.
Many questions about Cain need answering before I support him.
Cain just keeps saying things that make sense.
I am not convinced the republicans are going to put forth a candidate that has the ability to beat BO...rather are they willing to let BO take the heat for a fall’en nation and come in thereafter? I do believe both parties are looking at who is going to take the blame when the bottom does fall out. If it looks to the Democrats to have gone too far to “rescue” will they plan themselves for Obama’s demise? An illness or whatever to prevent his running that will be palatable to his base.?...and this at the last minute.
I think Cain is a new world order socialist in drag. New information about his supprt of the bailouts and his belief that is a good theing that the government own banks so it can make a profit.
That is fasism.
That is fascism, and fascism is socialism
Did Ron Paul come up with that one?
First of all, its spelled Fascism.
It’s interesting how anyone who acknowledges that capital flows around the world, and who understands that you can’t ignore the rest of the world when considering economic questions and business, is branded a “new world order socialist” by those who long to return to isolationism, which by the way was always anti-American, and always anti-intellectual anti-objective thought.
Second of all, if you think Herman Cain is a fascist, then you are obviously either a few beers short of a six-pack, or a liberal democrat troll plant.
If something is true the source doesn’t matter, but nice try, a C for effort.
I’m not a Paul suporter, still open to every choice, let’s vet them all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol45PnAIFRU
Video description: “I politely attempted to question Herman Cain on his support of the TARP Bailout and tried to obtain his opinion on the fact that billions of American Tax Payer Dollars went to Foreign Banks... As a Tea Party member who is deciding on who I should support for the Republican Primary I was shocked to hear him say “That’s too long of a question to answer” Mr. Cain seems very protective of the Federal Reserve and their secretive financial transactions.. He has lost my vote...”
Herman Cain in his own words:
“Wake up people! Owning a part of the major banks in America is not a bad thing. We could make a profit while solving a problem. But the mainstream media and the free market purists want you to believe that this is the end of capitalism as we know it.” -Herman Cain, re: TARP, 2008
Seems Cain loves the bailouts http://washingtonindependent.com/68578/yes-palin-backed-the-bailouts
Herman Cain is a pro-Fed, pro-bailout.
Don’t be caught voting for an originally-bailout-supporting, flip-flopping faker.
“As a Tea Party member who is deciding on who I should support for the Republican Primary I was shocked to hear him say ‘That’s too long of a question to answer’ “
Wow I have to admit I’ve heard more shocking things in my life than “That’s too long of a question to answer.”
When this person encounters the abbreviation “etc.” in books and periodicals are they sent into cardiac arrest?
How do they survive the inevitable “to be continued” at the of of some episodes of popular television series?
I would submit the cited Tea-Party supporter should grow a thicker skin to remain in the Tea-Party than their current aversion to incidental discontinuities seems to indicate is the case presently.
Sorry for the typo, and I actuall misuused the term fascism......
So you favor the government owning GM, OIG, and Ford, Burger King, McDonals, the NY Yankees. Because if they did they could use the profits to help us out of this mess. Becasue if what Cain said is true then he sure does. My question is where do you draw the line as to which business to own and which ones get to operate as a free company?
Look at all of the loot the communists/socialists could get from the oil companies if only we took the over. Well actually the government owning the company’s isn’t really fascism, which I not only misspelled but misused, it’s communism when th egovernment owns a business or part of the business, so my bad for thinking he is a fascist, he’s more of a scoislist.
See my tag line, it’s there to help stupid people understand what we are fighting, so there’s your sign.
Frankly, I agree that the GOP will not pick a winner deliberately, as they did in ‘98. I do not trust the RNC and I haven’t since ‘92. My hopes are with the Tea Party, but, as I’ve said before, there is something about Cain that doesn’t feel right to me. I do feel much better about one who has not yet announced, and that is Michelle Backman. It’s going to take a pile of dough, and since the RNC will not back a winner, it will be up to the electorate to fund her sufficiently to carry on a viable campaign. However, what she says should stimulate that support.
Then all we have to stand against is vote fraud.
You make some good points:
“So you favor the government owning GM, OIG, and Ford, Burger King, McDonals, the NY Yankees.”
No I don’t favor that.
“Because if they did they could use the profits to help us out of this mess. Becasue if what Cain said is true then he sure does. My question is where do you draw the line as to which business to own and which ones get to operate as a free company?”
We should draw the line at no tolerance for the government owning businesses, and then after that you figure out what parts of the government can be eliminated and/or de-governmentalized.
“Look at all of the loot the communists/socialists could get from the oil companies if only we took the over. Well actually the government owning the company’s isn’t really fascism, which I not only misspelled but misused, it’s communism when th egovernment owns a business or part of the business, so my bad for thinking he is a fascist, he’s more of a scoislist.”
I actually don’t think he’s a fascist or a communist. I think there are a lot of people that supported those moves in 2008 that wouldn’t support them now, and would like to disavow supporting them then. This may include Cain.
On another branch of this line of reasoning however, the media likes to skip the fact that Fascism essentially grew out of socialism in Germany. Fascism did not grow out of free-market classical liberalism (by which I mean modern Republican free-market financial conservatism.) It is often skipped over in the media’s rush to brand all free-market purists as Nazis, that fascism requires a socialistic surrender of the self at its beginning. So Nazism and Stalinism grow out of the same tree of socialist collectivism. With Nazism the perfection of the philosophy is self-sacrifice to the state and to the race, or the mythical idealized race, and with Stalinism the perfection of the philosophy is self-sacrifice to the state and to the “people” as an mythical idealized entity. Notice that both philosophies share the brotherhood of the concept of grinding the individual to unrecognizable fodder in the engine of collectivism and self sacrifice.
So the current dialectic between Nazism on the one extreme and Stalinism on the other extreme is a false dialectic set up by the majority of media outlets, meant to obscure the more important contrast, the real contrast between collectivism and individual liberty.
You know, the ones with the highest IQ are often the ones with the lowest common sense
I just am not happy with how things are playing out thus far. Though there are some good speaker candidates I cannot see most as being able to turn things in our country around. It is not going to be enough to be popular or simply like a candidate who knows how to stroke our backs and make us feel better. Our country is in serious trouble and what is ahead is not going to be a cake walk by any means. Who has the stuff that will be needed?
Well, that is an interesting theory, but who is in power when it does collapse will have more control over which direction country goes at that time, might not even have elections
Often that’s true, but not always.
Interesting statement but not backed up by reasoning on your part to any extent.
What exactly do you disagree with?
I disagree.
Regulation is to taxation as 10:1 in the job exodus.
Regulation and taxation are two heads of the same monster.
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