Free Republic

There’s been a lot of discussion about Mitt Romney’s appeal – or lack thereof – among supporters of limited government. To put it mildly, many libertarians and conservatives are underwhelmed by his less-than-stellar record on healthcare, his weakness on Social Security reform, his anemic list of proposed budget savings, and his reprehensible support for ethanol subsidies. Notwithstanding this dismal track record, some advocates of free markets argue that anybody would be better than Obama.But that’s not necessarily the case. Economic history shows that the burden of government often expands the most under Republicans, with Nixon and Bush (either one) being...

9-9-9 Plan | Prejudiced and Convoluted?- By: Larry Walker, Jr. -"A tax loophole is something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform." ~Russell B. Long -Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan, which involves eliminating the 15.3% payroll tax, of which every dime is presently committed to current Social Security and Medicare payments (and then some), fails to address the main problem with modern day governing – the budget. Since it was just barely 3 months ago when our nation faced its first ever credit downgrade, any tax reform proposal which doesn’t lead to a balanced...

After a series of poor debate performances in the early months of his presidential campaign, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is backing off the upcoming GOP debate schedule, committing to just one of the next three events between now and Nov. 15. Perry has struggled in the five debates he has attended since he joined the race in mid-August. At one, he fumbled an attempt to cast rival Mitt Romney as a flip-flopper. At another, bickering between Romney and Perry drew criticism that the candidates were acting juvenile. Perry hinted at his frustration with the debates earlier this week when he...

Republican frontrunner Herman Cain, who has built his support among party activists with his anti-tax message and controversial 9-9-9 tax plan, has called the IRS an "overseer" and compared taxation to slavery. "Our tax code is the 21st century version of slavery," says Cain in a recent campaign video. "In a Herman Cain administration, April 15 will no longer be a day to be dreaded." Perhaps some of Cain's anti-tax fervor can be traced to his own past encounters with the taxman. According to documents obtained by ABC News, in February 2008, the Georgia Department of Revenue hit Cain and...

The best thing that can be said about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s economic plan and its Tuesday rollout speech is that before now, he didn’t have a plan, and now he does. He can check that box. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, and, as a good Republican, I support everything he said. The problem is, we have supported it all before. Our voters want and appreciate creativity. This didn’t offer much in the way of anything new. This program is Steve Forbes-lite. But it is what it is. Now he has to stick with it. “Cut, Balance, and Grow”...

Here comes the Cain train, barreling past Romney in yet another poll, released today. Rick Perry is left in the lurch, falling from second to fifth in just over two weeks. ((snip)) Perry comes in at fifth with 6 percent of the vote. He’s ahead of only Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman.

Tax Reform: His campaign flagging, GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry is about to unveil what he hopes will be a game-changer: a flat tax. Whether it works for him or not, we're glad to see this bold idea part of the mix. We like Herman Cain a lot. But his 9-9-9 tax plan, not so much. Perry, no doubt trying to recoup some of his lost support, will unveil a flat tax proposal on Tuesday as a counter-salvo to Cain's popular idea. Count us among the intrigued. Sure, as the cliche goes, the devil is in the details. We don't...

Now that President Obama and the Democrats have generated a projected record $10 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years, they are now singing their favorite song: We must raise taxes! Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sent the first signal a few weeks ago when he said paying taxes is the price we pay for living in this great country. Never mind that we are paying too much and that too much of our money is being wasted. One of the president's senior economic advisers, Paul Volcker, said recently in a speech that "we must raise taxes" to deal...

Herman Cain deserves credit for proposing a tax-reform plan that is specific, promotes economic growth, and has captured the imagination of conservatives nationwide. His 9-9-9 plan builds on the insight that one of the chief defects of the current tax code is its bias toward consumption over savings. But his plan’s peculiarities of design, substantive weaknesses, and political naïveté render it unworthy of conservative support. Cain’s ultimate objective is a 30 percent national sales tax, but his interim plan is to replace the current income, payroll, and corporate tax codes with three new taxes. A 9 percent income tax would...

Herman Cain's "9-9-9" plan is coming under increased scrutiny. At issue is the fact that two of the "nines" are sales taxes. One is a national retail sales tax. The other is a value-added tax (VAT.) ATR has long been opposed to a VAT, since the European experience with them has been so negative. VATs started out in Western Europe at about a 5 percent rate, but now average about 20 percent. There is a 15 percent minimum VAT requirement just to join the European Union. The growth of government spending in Europe since 1970 is directly-correlated to the growth...

It seems that the 999 plan is receiving a lot of unfair criticism, because many people don't understand the difference between a value added tax (VAT) and a retail sales tax. I'm going to try and describe the difference here, using the milk supply chain as an example. A retail sales tax (this is what is in the 999 plan) A dairy farmer sells their milk to a processor. No taxes are levied or added to the price of the milk.The processor sells the milk to a wholesaler. No taxes are levied or added to the price of the milk.The...

Bartlett, Tenn. - Herman Cain lashed out at his critics Friday, accusing detractors of his 9-9-9 tax reform plan of trying to slow his newfound momentum with baseless attacks. During his first campaign swing since surging in the polls, Cain told a tea party crowd near his birthplace of Memphis that the plan would grow the economy by five percent at minimum, and pledged to pass it in his first 90 days in office. “Can y’all see the bull’s eye on my back?” he joked to the crowd of several hundred supporters who had gathered in a city park here...

Reagan Economist Breaks Down Cain's 999 Plan (Art Laffer)

Fueled by Tea Party supporters, conservatives and high-interest GOP primary voters, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain now leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. snip Cain checks in as the first choice of 27 percent of Republican voters in the poll, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 23 percent and Perry at 16 percent. After those three, it’s Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 11 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 8 percent, Bachmann at 5 percent and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman at 3 percent.

I am seeing many posts regarding Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan, many with omissions and errors.

Texas Governor Rick Perry can expect his most conservative rivals to try to knock him out of the saddle Tuesday in a high-stakes presidential debate in the key state of New Hampshire. The debate, hosted by Dartmouth College and broadcast live by Bloomberg Television, will be the first to focus solely on the economy as US unemployment remains at a stubbornly high 9.1 percent with 14 million Americans looking for work. "The goal of conservatives in the debate is to take Perry out first, and go after Romney later," said Allan Louden, a presidential debate expert at Wake Forest University.

WASHINGTON -- Herman Cain's bid for the Republican presidential nomination is fueled in part by his proposed tax code overhaul that tax policy veterans say doesn't add up. Cain's proposal is gaining attention after a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday found his campaign is tied for second place with Texas Gov. Rick Perry among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. In campaign stops, Cain touts his 9-9-9 plan as a concept that will lead to a fairer tax system. The proposal would tax sales transactions and gross income for individuals and businesses at 9 percent while eliminating levies on capital gains....

...President Obama, who in April 2010 deemed a VAT “something that would be novel for the United States”, announced on Monday his intention to nominate Princeton University’s Alan B. Krueger to head the Council of Economic Advisors. In a 2009 blog post for the New York Times, Krueger wrote: “Why not pass a 5 percent consumption tax to take effect two years from now?” Even when pressed, the Obama White House has never ruled out a VAT. As the timeline below illustrates, those in and around the White House have been flirting with a VAT from the earliest days:December 18,...

Among the tax reforms getting attention is a value-added tax, or VAT. Similar to a sales tax (more about this below), the value-added tax has become a significant part of the revenue systems of Europe and also has been adopted by over 100 other nations. The VAT is believed to be a magical device that can stuff government coffers with money without untoward economic political consequences. It is no such thing. In the first place, increasing taxes will reduce economic growth. This is irrational and self-defeating policy. If the point of the current debt-ceiling exercise is to make the American...

Speaking in Oldham ahead of the by-election there this month, Mr Miliband will criticise the Coalition for "going too far and too fast" by cutting public spending and increasing taxes. He will say that a prime example is VAT, which will increase from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent, from midnight tonight. The increase will be felt most keenly on Tuesday tomorrow morning by motorists, who will see the price of fuel rise by 3p a litre in just a few days from a combination of the VAT rise and a rise in fuel duty. Mr Miliband will say:...

Fuel price rises by 0.76p per litreSat Jan 1, 2011 3:26PM On 1 January, the British government announced an increase in the price of petrol, a condition which led to another 0.76p rise in the price of both petrol and diesel. This is while VAT will rise by 2.5 percent on 4 January. It is also said that another £1,200 is to be added to annual fuel bills due to the rises announced on 1 January, according to the state-run BBC. The AA suggested that these increases would push the cost of a litre of both diesel and petrol up...

Krugman made his comments on ABC's “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” ... ... "Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it's not going to happen now." ... "If they [the Debt Commission] were going to do reality therapy, they should have said, ‘OK, look, Medicare is going to have to decide what it's going...

The European Commission has put forward proposals for direct EU taxes on member states, including a possible EU-wide value-added tax (VAT). The proposals are part of a package of options for finding new sources of revenue for the European Union budget. EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski first said in August that he wanted member states to consider allowing the EU to levy direct taxes... The 27 EU member states pay a fixed contribution to the EU budget, based on their gross domestic product and a percentage of their VAT.

So it turns out that the cure for “epistemic closure” is great quantities of crystal meth. The things you learn from Grover Norquist. In case you missed it, Norquist came down like a runaway gravel truck on Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, a favorite around these parts. Governor Daniels’s offense was declaring himself open to the possibility that a value-added tax might be an acceptable part of a wide-ranging reform of the federal tax system. Norquist replied, in a Politico interview: “This is outside the bounds of acceptable modern Republican thought, and it is only the zone of extremely left-wing Democrats...

The National Retail Federation is trying to put some numbers behind its argument against a value-added tax, which is one option being considered by a presidential commission looking into ways of reducing the ballooning federal deficit. The retail industry's trade group said a study it commissioned estimates a European-style VAT would result in the loss of 850,000 jobs in its first year, reduce the US gross domestic product for three years, and cut retail spending by $2.5 billion over its first decade. The study, which was conducted by Ernst and Young and economic research firm Tax Policy Advisers, concluded that...

N.H. Sen. Judd Gregg tells CNBC's Larry Kudlow leaders are 'trying to run the government into the ditch' to institute European social welfare model. We’ve heard from various elements that President Barack Obama was a socialist trying to “fundamentally change” the United States of America in a covert manner, but maybe it isn’t as covert as it seems. A recent CNS News analysis of government data shows that in the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion - more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by...

Link is to video of Kudlow interviewing Gregg. Gregg says Obama and Dems spending is intentional, so that we'll have no choice but to institute a value-added tax (VAT) so our tax policy mimics the European model. A few examples: “This spending is being done intentionally.” “VAT is the plan.” “Down the European road.”

I’ve been reading a bit about Milton Friedman, a Hoover Institution economist -- not a politician -- who past away in 2006. Conservatives can learn quite a bit from this great man. We need another conservative economic mentor for present-day, and maybe Dan Mitchell is that person? The headline from this article is a Friedman quote from a March 2000 interview billed as an effort to provide economic advice to the next president. Do read the full interview, I can almost hear Friedman’s voice discussing the topic with his unique inflection, almost guiding you to answer questions yourself with an...

The United Kingdom has one. Canada has one. So do Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and Spain. But the United States does not. The value-added tax, or VAT, is a kind of national sales tax that has become a key source of government revenue in developed nations around the world.[...] I don’t think a VAT is in our immediate future, but it is not out of the question. The stark reality is that Uncle Sam is going to need vast piles of money to try to keep many of his promises. He can’t get it all from the wealthy, and...

VAT or Crock This particular levy is a European craze long looked upon with envy by American elites. For example, President Clinton recently gave an interview in which he waxed rhapsodic about the Value Added Tax (VAT), long a staple in most of the nations of Western Europe. “I think they ought to look at a progressive value-added tax, just because—and I think it’s important the American people understand this—most of our competitors have tax systems like this,” the former president told CNBC recently. “If you have a value-added tax … you lower the income taxes, corporate and personal, and...

The ringleader of a bootleg alcohol gang which produced more than a million litres of illegal vodka costing the taxman £10 million in lost revenue was jailed for 12 years today. Harvey Conroy ran a 'determined and professional' outfit which produced fake vodka and tobacco without paying excise duty or VAT, defrauding the state of millions of pounds. Richard Christie QC, for the prosecution, said Conroy orchestrated the fraud in a bid to make massive profits, with the factories working 24 hours-a-day

The so-called Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Although some of the cuts retain bipartisan support in Congress and may yet be extended, as of now, Washington has some severe changes in store for you and your family. Higher Tax Rates for All You may have been led to believe that only individuals in the top two brackets will face higher federal income taxes when the Bush cuts go bye-bye. Not true! Unless Congress takes action and President Obama goes along, rates will go up for everyone -- not just a sliver of...

.....One idea for raising taxes to pay down the debt is the bill introduced this February by Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.). His “Debt Free America Act” (H.R. 4646) would impose a 1 percent “transaction tax” on every financial transaction — whether paid by cash, credit card or any form of financial transfer, the only exception being transactions involving the purchase or sale of stock. Theoretically, everyone would pay one cent on the dollar for every such transaction in America every day — whether $3 million on a $300 million business acquisition, $300 on the purchase of a $30,000 car, or...

You don't need a Mensa IQ to figure this one out. Mr. Obama's plan has been to increase spending to new, and what he hopes will be permanent, heights. Then as the public and financial markets begin to fret about deficits and debt, he'll claim that the debt is "unsustainable" and that the only "responsible" policy is to raise taxes. White House officials even talk privately about the galvanizing political benefit of a bond market crisis, which would force panicked Members of Congress to accept a big new value-added tax. The President's two looming tax reports—one from his deficit commission...

Last week the British government announced that the VAT -- a form of a sales tax -- will go  up from 17.5 percent to 20 percent. This is bad news for the Brits. It comes only two months after it was announced that the top income tax bracket would be 50 percent. That bracket includes everyone who makes more than £150,000 ($220,000) per year. This means that every British citizen who earns more than £150,000 will see a half of his income confiscated by the government straight off. From what remains, he will have to pay an additional 20...

BUCHAREST (AFP) – Romania will raise the VAT tax levied on goods and services to 24 percent from 19 percent to curb the public deficit and obtain a crucial IMF loan disbursement, Prime Minister Emil Boc said on Saturday. The move comes after a court on Friday blocked the government's plan to cut pensions by 15 percent in 2010, leading the International Monetary Fund to postpone the unlocking of a new tranche that was due on Monday. "The government has decided to raise the VAT tax by five points", Boc told a press conference. "Under these conditions, the agreement with...

The problems with the bankrupt Greeks and the faltering euro are sad to watch. But the key here is to learn from it. Yes, the Greeks had debts that exceeded their revenue. Does that mean they needed higher taxes to cover their spending? No, it means they needed to cut spending and probably cut taxes as well to encourage entrepreneurship and growth. The lesson hit home again yesterday when Bill Clinton suggested that the U. S. might want to adopt a VAT (Value Added Tax). The VAT is a series of taxes levied at different stages in the making of...

It is interesting how the left will take a politically popular idea and pervert it into something that will only further destroy a country that is already well down the road to serfdom. The latest example is the Obama administration's repeated statements that it is looking into the possibility of a Value Added Tax (VAT). This comes after almost two decades of millions of Americans advocating a "Fair Tax" instead of the current income tax system. Obama's apologists will state that they both are, after all, taxes on consumption. The similarities after that, however, largely evaporate. The Fair Tax is...

Bill Clinton: More immigrants and value-added tax will reduce deficit By Eric Zimmermann - 05/14/10 11:53 AM ET The U.S. needs more immigrants and a value-added tax to help reduce the deficit, former President Bill Clinton said Friday. Clinton said the country was "mortgaging out a lot of our sovereignty" by using foreign creditors to pay for an "exploding" debt. His recipe? More growth and revenue, fueled by immigrant workers and a controversial value-added tax. "I think we're going to have to have more taxpayers, which is why I favor, in a disciplined way, immigration reform and letting more immigrants...

A value added tax, or VAT for short, is something that has been floating around Washington for some time now as a solution to help the trillion dollar deficit woes. Most Americans probably do not know what a VAT is, considering it is a fairly recent European idea, but they are probably wondering how it will personally affect them and their families. Well, you better open your eyes and smell the taxes because a VAT is coming to a store near you. Started by the French in 1954, a VAT has now been implemented throughout the European Union and many...

The new Government today started to get to grips with the vast black hole in public finances after David Cameron and Nick Clegg held the first coalition Cabinet meeting. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley gave an early warning that the NHS would not be exempt from efficiency savings and pay cuts despite a commitment to increase funding every year in real terms. Economists also believe George Osborne will have to hike VAT from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent as he battles to pay down the colossal £167billion deficit. And in the first move to slash spending in Westminster, Mr...

Corruption: The carbon trading system being pushed here has spawned crime and fraud across the pond. Cap-and-trade is not about saving the planet. It's about money and power, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. All across Europe authorities have been conducting raids, rounding up individuals involved in a new version of Climate-gate. This time the data aren't corrupted. Europe's Emissions Trading System is. The system is so sick, it's turned out to be a scam built upon a scam. Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids by British and German authorities as part of a pan-European crackdown on carbon credit VAT...

The idea of a value-added tax (VAT), attacked by national Republicans ever since it was floated by a White House adviser, has some GOP supporters in Congress. Five Republican House members are co-sponsors of a bill by Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) that would impose a VAT on imports from countries that use the tax. In the Senate, George Voinovich (R-Ohio) has suggested that replacing income taxes with a VAT could be one way to streamline the tax code. "I don't know whether it would [be more efficient] or not," Voinovich told The Hill. "All I'm saying is that we shouldn't...

How to Kill the Fairtax: In recent weeks there has been more and more Washington chatter about a European-style Value Added Tax (VAT) to fund massive new government spending. The VAT, a highly regressive and hidden consumer tax buried within the price of retail goods would be layered on top of the broken income tax system. Some may have already confused a VAT with the FairTax. Both are consumption taxes but that is all they have in common. “It is simply a terrible idea. Unlike the FairTax, a Value Added Tax won’t replace the income tax system, is hidden within...

Unlike say, Nic Cage or Lindsay Lohan, Beyonce Knowles is living the life. She and her husband Jay-Z are worth a reported $265 million and she's still the hottest singer on radio. But did you know Beyonce's father Matthew Knowles owns a block of property in Galveston, Texas that was devastated by Hurricane Ike? And did you know that FEMA is going to pay Beyonce and her father a cool $425,000 to reimburse them for close to the original value of the house? Yep, it's true, according to an excellent report from Mother Jones. The house is one of 68...

As the Obama Administration continues to float the possibility of enacting a Value Added Tax (VAT) as a solution to the growing deficit problem, polls show that such a national sales tax is widely unpopular with the American people. According to a Rasmussen poll, 60% of likely voters are against a VAT if it is simply a way to raise revenue for the government, with only 20% favoring a VAT to raise money for Uncle Sam. If the VAT is used to pay specifically for healthcare, the numbers improve swith 51% of voters nationwide still opposing a national sales tax...

A VAT is coming. This prediction is wrapped in as much certainty as possible. When? Not before the 2010 elections. No Democrat standing for reelection whose seat is within 20 points will utter word one about a VAT. Their situation is already too desperate to suggest increased taxes. It’s even money whether we’ll see active congressional committee work before Mr. Obama begins his reelection campaign: look for that in theaters near you, opening on January 2, 2011....

Surety A VAT is coming. This prediction is wrapped in as much certainty as possible. When? Not before the 2010 elections. No Democrat standing for reelection whose seat is within 20 points will utter word one about a VAT. Their situation is already too desperate to suggest increased taxes. It’s even money whether we’ll see active congressional committee work before Mr. Obama begins his reelection campaign: look for that in theaters near you, opening on January 2, 2011. It’s a sure bet that the VAT comes by 2014, which is one year after Obama’s second term, or during the first...

The Obama Democrats' stealth strategy for increasing the size and scope of the federal government is well under way, despite huge voter backlash. Federal spending has risen from a 30-year average of 21 percent of gross domestic product to 25 percent, and a bipartisan commission tasked with reducing the deficit may recommend tax increases. Presidential economic adviser Paul Volcker has already called for a value-added tax, a form of national sales tax. President Obama yesterday refused to rule out any tax hikes, saying of the deficit commission: "We're not playing that game. I'm not going to say what's in. I'm...

First, there was Climate Gate – the scandal with hacked emails suggesting scientists have abused data for research on global warming. Now, another international climate scandal is emerging that may have an impact on the talks in Copenhagen. Europe’s top police body Europol, the closest thing that European Union has to the American FBI, has exposed a massive fraud with the unions official market in carbon credits, the Emission Trading System. The fraud is costing tax payers in a handful of European countries more than five billion euro – 7 billion dollars – and raises doubts about the effectiveness of...