Herman Cain has proposed a brilliantly simple
9-9-9 Plan for funding the Federal Government. This tax plan is a combination nine percent "flat" income tax, a nine percent sales tax (VAT) and a nine percent corporate tax rate. There is, however, one glaring oversight. What is to prevent future "Obamaesque" or "New Deal" Administrations from changing it to a 12-12-12 Plan? Or, 20-20-20 Plan?
Once the government becomes the "responsible party", as opposed to the individual, is there anything that is not the government's business?
The mistaken rationale of "Obamacare" is that the absence of an unfettered by a lack of personal responsibility and a distorted supply/demand loop will somehow lead to lower costs, is pure fantasy.
Because of this "socialization" of medicine, all of the actions or inactions of our fellow citizens becomes our business, because we are being forced to pay for other people's choices. Suddenly, how much your neighbors smoke, how much alcohol they consume, how much they eat, what they eat, etc., etc., etc. becomes and endless list of things that the government has made part of your business.
This is why the graduated income tax always exploits class warfare (haves & have-nots) and is the basis of Fascism, direct government control of private business, which ceases to be individual enterprise on the basis of "Fairness".
"Fairness" to whom? Is always the unanswered question. Certainly not to the entrepreneur.
But, we can not say that we were not warned.
The Founders, particularly the Antifederalist, such as
George Mason, knew that direct taxation was repugnant to a free society. Direct taxation always leads to centralization [iii] and then to tyranny. This is why they insisted on a (individual's) "Bill of Rights".
"The assumption of this power of laying direct taxes does, of itself, entirely change the confederation of the states into one consolidated government." -- George Mason, the Virginia ratifying convention, June 4, 1788. (
Antifederalist #35)
Consolidation and centralization are the polar opposites of the concept of "Federalism" and of the Union. This constitutional republic that was designed to be as unobtrusive and invisible to its individual citizens as was possible.
In
Federalist # 12, Alexander Hamilton describes the key commercial function of government for a prosperous people and the folly of direct taxation (on income or property):
"The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares. By multiplying the means of gratification, by promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals, those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify and invigorate the channels of industry, and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness. The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer, -- all orders of men, look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils."
Simply put, this is the promotion of "Cash Flow". Thus making commerce operate with more velocity and on a more "regular", unrestricted basis.
Hamilton tells us further in
Federalist #32 that commerce only flows and grows rapidly in a secure and stable regulatory environment. This is why the
Constitution dictates to the Federal Government and to the individual States in Article I, Sections IX and X that:
"No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
The fundamental problem with "Robin Hood" government is that it distorts the "Free market" informational loop. The Free Market always functions more efficiently than centralized planed economies because demand / supply / price feedback loop functions at warp speed compared to the bureaucracy's snail's pace. And, it provides more complete and precise information.
Mr. Cain is on the right track, with his plan, he embraces another concept which the Founders knew and Democrat John F. Kennedy pointed out brilliantly:
"A rising tide lifts all boats". Ronald Reagan embraced this as a self evident truth and it was the basis of the "Reagan Revolution".
Herman Cain is rapidly gaining credibility and popularity because he is as much the "Happy Warrior" as was Ronald Reagan. His plan is simple and straightforward -- just not quite complete. He needs to additionally embrace the 9 year abolishment of the Sixteenth Amendment to prevent later mischief (the sinking of our boats) by the Radical Left.
Mr. Cain should have enough confidence in his proposal to know that the American people, when unshackled from government intrusion and restriction, can create more than enough revenue to pay their own bills without destroying the prosperity of its future generations. Thus relegating the direct tax on income to the dust bin of history, where it belongs.
[ii] -- Frederic Bastiat destroyed the myth of Keynesian economics in his brilliant 1850 essay: "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen". This is also known as the "Broken Window Theory". -
bastiat.org
Too bad Keynes didn't learn from it.
[iii] --Federalist #
10 &
51 by James Madison
Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Plan
