Herman Cain's 999 Plan and what it means to you.

The top 1% who, through loopholes, only have to pay 19% in taxes, would love to get it down to 9%. This causes an alarming problem for the impoverished and the middle class, who will have to pay more. OMG. Bachmann was right. There is something devilish about this after all.

The problem with this logic is that he expects corporations to lower their cost. There is a REAL LIFE example of what would happen if taxes were lowered. Airlines had a tax renewal block by republicans, thus lowering the overall ticket price. However, the airlines just raised their rates to make up for the difference, and just made more money. Another example of this is gas prices, even though the price of oil goes down, the price of gas doesn't go down as low, and always goes up higher than they go down. We consider $3.00 a gallon of gas as cheap, but we should be paying $2.25 to $2.50 a gallon based on the price of oil. But, the market will bare $3.30 a gallon today, and that is what is charged. Do you really think that lowering taxes on this will make corporations lower the actually cost of products? You must have greater faith in corporations than you do in the power of greed in corporate America.

I'm sorry I somehow managed to be so late in responding to this discussion, which means most of what can be said already has been! However, I'm still going to put my two cents in... For starters, even if it were true that "most of us will be paying LESS in taxes", which I don't think is accurate since it's dependent upon businesses passing their tax savings onto the consumer, that isn't the only thing that matters to our economy and to the nation in general. I've never seen such "class warfare" used against the working poor before! Heck, the right's biggest hero, Ronald Reagan, was a huge proponent of the Earned Income Credit which is what everyone is really complaining about when they speak or write about lower income earners who actually get back more than they have withheld in Federal Income Taxes. This is usually a temporary situation since the vast majority of those who qualify for the EIC are parents of dependent children. However, it does NOT reward people for having more children since it only gives credit for TWO. (Alright, now I know I'll get the argument that some couples decide to have another baby when one of their kids reaches 18...lol!) This credit goes a long way in keeping WORKING families out of poverty and allowing them to contribute to the economy! It ONLY benefits those who are working since those whose only incomes come from other sources such as welfare, Social Security Disability or SSI are not eligible for the EIC. I know most of those who have already weighed in on this topic will disagree with me but I don't feel that it's more "fair" for me to pay a few bucks less in taxes while many parents of young children have their disposable income drastically cut! Some of you seem to forget businesses NEED lower and middle income earners to be able to buy their goods and services. There aren't enough rich people to go around to consume everything our economy produces! Annie

According to this our sales tax would go down by about 2% which would certainly be nice. Thank you for sharing the link and the information.

The non-partisan Tax Policy Institute begs to differ: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/Cain-9-9-9-plan.cfm

ted, you're depending on corporations to pass along their savings to their customers? given their past history, let me know how that works out for you.

Take your last tax return and see what you paid in taxes and see what percentage of your total income it was to see how it compares to 9%. Right now you have the benefit of the standard deductions and exemptions that would go away under Cain's plan. Then try to estimate what a 9% sales tax will do to you income.