GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain again laid out his plan to revive the economy in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday.
Dubbed the “9-9-9 plan,” Cain’s proposal, which he has been touting for several weeks, would restructure the tax code to include a 9 percent corporate and personal flat tax and a 9 percent national sales tax. Taxes on repatriated profits would also be eliminated along with payroll taxes and the estate tax.
The inspiration, the former businessman said, came from three guiding economic principles: “Production drives the economy. Risk-taking creates growth. Units of measurement must be dependable.”
Cain included in his op-ed the Republican battle cry of reduced spending by the federal government and paying down the country’s debt. In addition, Obama’s health care reform, the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-governance law, and the Dodd-Frank bank regulation should be repealed, he said. “A dollar must be worth the same tomorrow as it is today.”
The candidate also endorsed the creation of “empowerment zones” to revitalize inner cities through tax credits for business hiring workers who live and work in underprivileged areas. “Empowerment zones would create a whole new generation of wage-earners providing for their families,” he wrote.
The continually high unemployment is “unfitting for the greatest nation the world has ever known,” Cain concluded. “After all, it is inherently American to work, to risk, and to dream. Our government's policies should encourage that, not stifle it.”
A Cain campaign ad released on Wednesday called the current tax code “the 21st-century version of slavery,” The Hill reports.
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