Mood:
d'ohTopic: "Nein, nein, nein"(7)
Herman, or as Sarah Palin has said "Herbert," Cain would be flabbergasted to know that the identical pronunciation of his economic reform plan (9-9-9) into German is translated as "No-no-no." Frodo took a few minutes out of a busy day in order to actually read some of this tripe, and he has to admit that it is even more bizarre than Cain himself.
For those who have been on Neptune, or Kandahar, for the past week or so, they may have missed Cain's accelerating commentary on a tax reform package that consists of 9% corporate taxes, 9% individual income taxes, and 9% federal sales taxes. Cain alleges that an employee of Wells Fargo in Ohio has assured him that the plan is viable. The first problem noted is that it does not produce enough revenue to meet current demand.
That is an easily dealt with problem if one simply removes both Social Security and Medicare from the current federal budget, which is exactly what Cain suggests. He adds that churches, state & local governments, volunteers, etc. should have the responsibility for meeting these needs, and that how they would accomplish this would be a testimonial to the exceptionalism of Americans. Frodo notes that it would also require Divine Intervention.
The second problem deals with fairness. We know now that Warren Buffet paid federal income taxes at a rate of 16.9% last year, and that under the 9-9-9 plan his taxes, and those of all who report under the vaunted "top 1%" total, would pay but 9%. The 40% or so of Americans who make too little to provide for their families, and who now pay no federal income tax at all, would pay 9% of their gross income (since all deductions would be eliminated). The result being that the onus shifts, truly, to the poor and the middle-class, while the wealthiest Americans get a pronounced tax cut. Imagine, dear reader, a person living now on Social Security Disability, who would lose the income, and then be taxed on any largesse shown by their Church or friends.
Frodo stopped reading. It is, as he has heard from Joe Scarborough (among others) that this guy Cain meets the true definition of "cowboy." He is just making this crap up as he herds the cattle to slaughter.
Notice how the most bizarre always seem to publish a book just about the time they go "rogue" or visit with a financial representative from a bank that received a TARP bailout? Note also that it was Little Ricky's wife who said this evening, "Anybody who buys into 9-9-9 needs to call 9-1-1."
Amen, sister, amen.
