GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Wednesday criticized rival Herman Cain’s "9-9-9" tax plan, which would place a 9 percent flat tax on sales, income, and businesses.
“Everybody who has been for a sales tax in the past, including the fair tax, understand you can’t give the federal government an income tax and a sales tax,” Santorum said on Fox and Friends. “That’s doubling the opportunity for them to get you coming and now going.”
Santorum said he polled the audience at Tuesday night’s debate in New Hampshire and asked them to raise their hands if they approve a 9 percent sales tax. “And not a single hand went up, by the way,” Santorum said.
Asked to describe his own economic plan in a separate appearance on MSNBC'S Morning Joe on Wednesday, Santorum said he would call it the "0-0-0 plan, because when it comes to taxes, zero is better than nine." Santorum proposes to reduce the corporate tax to zero for manufacturers and repeal, or as he puts it, "zero out" all Obama regulations that cost businesses more than $100 million a year.
The former senator from Pennsylvania said in Tuesday's debate that the 0-0-0 plan would pass immediately with broad support. He expects the plan to receive bipartisan support, as it is conservative in nature but emphasizes boosting manufacturing jobs, which industrial-state Democrats could support.
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