Herman Cain is a big advocate of the 9-9-9 taxation plan, as previously proposed in Sims4. And everyone knows that video games are tools of the Devil. And in coming in out of pretty much nowhere, he’s turned the political establishment on its head. Turn 9-9-9 over and what do you get?
Coincidence?
PAD
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Michelle Bachmann already made the 999-666 connection in one of the debates. You can find it on YouTube.
I really, really hope she was making a joke.
Not according to Michelle Bachmann, but she thinks you can pray the gay away, so I don’t put a lot of stock in what she says anyway.
I loved SNL’s take on Cain and the 9-9-9, and his various three digit plans for every problem there is.
In England, 9-9-9 is what they call instead of 9-1-1 for an ambulance. I think the US needs to call 9-9-9 right now, personally.
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9-9-9 is such a crock. But apparently all you need to do to get people behind a massive load of manure is give them a good sound byte/slogan for something and don’t ask them to actually think about what they’re supporting.
At least he’s TALKING about tax code reform. I wish more of the Republican candidates would.
That’s rather like saying that if Bachmann starting rambling on about the Rapture, we should at least give her credit for addressing the issue of overcrowding in schools.
The thing is, the other candidates are only against it because they didn’t come up with it first.
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So don’t be surprised if one of them gets the nomination over Cain that they pick it up and try and run with it.
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And be even less surprised when many Americans think it’s a great idea, even when they’ll be the ones affected the most by this horrible notion of a tax plan.
I don’t think your first prediction will come true, particularly if the candidate’s name ends up rhyming with “omni.” Your second prediction, however, rings very true to me, at least right now. The Democrats are so vulnerable right now that this is the best chance in a long time for conservatives to give our tax code a much needed and fundamental change. It’s being reported now that Perry is supporting a flat tax.
It’s being reported now that Perry is supporting a flat tax.
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Of course he supports a flat tax. The GOP’s core goal right now is to do anything that punishes the poor and favors the rich. And a flat tax fits right in with that goal.
A flat tax would finally end all this “paying their fair share” nonsense. Class envy would be effectively removed from the Left’s arsenal of fallacies, were something like that implemented.
“Flat tax” bankrupted Romania. ¿Remember the depressing post-soviet Romania from PAD’s old columns about doing movies? Well, Flat Tax made it WORSE.
Overspending bankrupted the government of Romania.
Trying to pay for a third of what a decent state needs to pay with a budget out of the wet dreams of an anarchocapitalists is what bankrupted them.
Nope. They simply weren’t used to not being Communists.
Darin, I can’tsay I disagree with your point about reforming the tax code, but Cain’s plan doesn’t even begin to address it. His ill-informed plan (or maybe well-informed, depending on whether or not you’re rich) simply makes the wealthy even wealthier. It eliminates the capital gains tax, which would allow 23,000 millionaires, who earn their income solely from investment, to pay no federal tax at all. And it elminates estate tax, which allows those same wealthy people to keep virtually all of that money. And as far as the rest of us, USC professor Edward Kleinbard, recently noted in Tax Notes that a middle class family of four with an income of $50,000 a year, would see their overall tax burden increase by five grand, to a total of $13,500. Meanwhile, a lot of those millionaires I mentioned before would pay zero in federal tax. So Cain can keep slipping and sliding and talking about the difference between apples and oranges, but I think people are starting to realize his plan is pure rubbish.
I think it was Stendhal that wrote that every Revolution, no matter how brutal and unjustified in moral terms, is in response to equally brutal past injustices.
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People like Herman Cain are directly responsible for people like Hugo Chaves gaining power. There will come a time that not all the demonizing of “class warfare” and “communism” will stop something very drastic happening in America, if they keep widening the gap between rich and poor.
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They’re playing with fire, quite recklessly.
Is it a perfect sort of reform idea? Probably not. But Cain’s got the right mind set when it comes to addressing our tax code. Maybe this will spur an even better plan from one of the others. Like I said, Perry is already endorsing a flat tax in response. These are just debates, folks. Nothing to get too excited about yet.
Hmm…
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Is it a perfect sort of reform idea? Probably not. But Obama’s got the right mind set when it comes to addressing our health care system.
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Just sayin’.
If only you made sense.
A projection of the 9-9-9 plan efect on current contribution by quintiles and a detach for the top 1% and 0.1%
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http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Average-tax-change-from-9-9-9-plan-10-18-2011-OPT.jpg
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When whatever you say can be refuted not by oppinions but by history and math, Darin, you should consider getting an education.
I don’t see that your little blog graphic has refuted anything I’ve said on this so far, Malo.
I am starting to believe the GOP higher-ups are secretly communists. They want to make the poor and the middle class so angry that they will revolt.
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Nothing else can explain it.
So, in other words, you think they are a bunch of community organizers, eh?
Do you realize that what you called “blog graphic” is simply the desviation on quintile contribution that would result from the 9-9-9 plan implantatation? Not devised by someone in his basement but by calculated by the Tax Policy Center. A non partisan group doing math. Dont agree with it? Good…can you say where it is wrong?
It’s designed to misinform.
Give up, Hombre.
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He is not human, he is a robot programmed with the most simplistic caricature of a conservative’s ideas.
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The alternate theory is that he knows he is not making any sense and being obnoxious, and he enjoys seeing the dumb Liberals trying to deal with it.
I’d like to know why Malo wants anyone who legally succeeds in our society when it comes to personal wealth punished.
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El Hombre Malo, Rene is correct. You’re attempting to be intelligent and have a conversation. He’s playing his same old games.
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“Darin March 23, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Guys, Guys, Guys….
Havent you figured out what I do on these political blogs yet?
I go in every once in a great-great while, make statements that I know most of you oppose and then when you throw up little links to provide your side with support, I just repeat myself. I ignore your links and just reiterate what I’ve said. It’s what I’ve done every. Single. Time. Here… when there is a political thread.
Sheesh.
Darin”
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http://www.peterdavid.net/index.php/2007/03/22/this-is-all-starting-to-sound-extremely-familiar/comment-page-2/#comment-31387
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Basically, he’s laughing every time he gets you to respond to him. He’s a troll. He’s a self admitted troll. feed him if you want, but you’re never getting an intelligent discussion out of him.
No, seriously. I’d like to know why Malo has such a problem with anyone who legally succeeds at becoming wealthy. He seems to have it out for such people and I’d like to know why he feels that way.
I dont, in fact I am more pro-entrepeneur than you. Or Cain. Because when a state is strong and able to provide social safenets, people are able to pursue their personal projects without risking their (and their families) welfare ad eternum. It’s not a theory, either; look at the upward mobility rates in the Top30 industrial countries. The American Dream is alive and well…in Norway.
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I have been self employed most of my worklife and I am currently starting a company. My father, life long contributor to non-sectorial unions (even when they were illegal) created his own company too and was succesful at it. My sister had her own bussiness too for years. I actually know what it takes and what helps to create a bussines, one that earns me a tidy living and creates jobs. And that is why I support progressive taxation.
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(And yes, I know I might be feeding the Troll)
A true manly entrepreuner disdains safety nets.
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You Europeans are SISSIES!
(And yes, I know I might be feeding the Troll)
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But unfortunately, unlike Mr. Creosote, this one will not explode from overeating.
Malo, if you’re all those things and you still support “progressive” taxation then you are effectively shooting yourself in the foot and it leads me to question everything you’ve just told me about yourself.
One does not vote with it’s own best interests in mind but with society’s. Or at least is what I was raised to believe its “civic”. Then, like “compassionate”, I am sure “civic” means something different for you. Something that has to do with the blood of the weak feeding the orchard of the worthy.
I’ll bet you’ve got a fascinating business model…
I liked it on “The Colbert Report” when there was a montage of media people saying “9-9-9,” ending with Hitler in “Inglourious Bášŧërdš” shouting “NEIN, NEIN, NEIN!!!”
If I were reading a work of fiction with politicians as outrageous as Cain, Palin, Bachmann, Santorum, etc. I would think the writer was spoofing Conservatives.
It’s sad for the GOP that most of the current crop seems more like the creations of some political satirist than real human beings.
Only Perry and Romney look normal, even though Perry is as extremist as some of the others.
The problem for the Republican nominees (and I’m an independent with liberal leanings, so I don’t have a dog in the race) is that to get the nomination they have to get the support of those die-hard, extremist conservatives, the ones who seem “like the creations of some political satirist.” You know, the ones who would gladly make America into a Christian theocracy, the ones who advocate less taxes for the richest and more for the poor, the ones who see any business regulation as awful and the E.P.A. as an evil that must be destroyed, the ones who see Obama as evil (and, in an alarmingly large percentage, as the literal Antichrist). And after the eventual nominee makes it through that gauntlet of extremism, that person *then* has to go out and appeal to moderates and independents.
Good luck.
Their advantage is that voters have memories that make those of goldfishes seem like elephants.
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So, yeah, they have a real chance at winning the undecided vote.
A change in the tax code that already has the wealthy, who are paying the lowest taxes in history, by having them pay less and the middle class, whose incomes have shrunk while the rich get richer, pay more, gets rid of “class envy” how?
Because everybody will be paying the same percentage of their daily income. Nobody will be able to point to someone else and claim that they aren’t paying “their fair share.” (Unless of course, they attempt to redefine “fair.”) It will also spur economic growth like nobody alive today has ever seen.
It’s good that you say “nobody alive” because it’s true. There are historical accounts. There was a time when everyone payed the same percentage. 10% to be precise. 10% of your income, your produce or your time. It was called the middle age.
It actually makes sense, Ed. If you starve the poor and make the middle class die from lack of medical care, you will end “class envy” for all time.
I’d like to take the time now to extend my thanks to Daily Show host Jon Stewart for putting Herman Cain on the map. Stewart’s “Amos & Andy” style lampooning of Cain gave the candidate his first major bit of media exposure and endeared him greatly to conservatives all across the country. Thank you, Jon Stewart!