Tax Reform 999: Herman Cain's Weird Tax Plan

Republicans have long attacked Keynesian economics and now, after decades of suffering, reputedly have their own version: Cainsian economics.

On enactment, the planet's biggest economy would be paid for by the sort of America tax that is music to the ears of many Tea Partiers based upon simplicity itself.

If Herman Cain is elected President, this is how he'd want the tax code readjusted:

9% corporate taxes

9% income taxes

9% national sales tax

However, as the self-styled Sage of Tax Law, Representative Michelle Bachmann, deftly pointed out: "…the Devil's in the details" and turned upside down, 999 would be 666.

The Mark of the Beast.

The Anti-Christ.

I have got to admit that my head is spinning and I've broken a cold sweat.

Everyone knows that Mrs. Bachmann is standing for President because, as she has proudly proclaimed, she prayed for His guidance and He gave her "the sense" it was her purpose in life.

Are we to conclude from that calling that maybe God himself once again spake, something similar to "Beware the Sign of the Beast" and she got "the sense" He wanted her to turn 999 upside down so we, who are seldom blessed with messages from God's lips to our ears could identify the Animal?

Heavens to Murgatroyd!

Citizen Cain appears to be such a likeable fellow so perhaps, unfortunately, it wasn't really the Lord Representative Bachmann heard, just more voices inside her head.

I grew up where there were places for people who heard voices.

Today, that seems to be Congress.

But, back to Mr. Cain who appears to be taking the Republican Party by storm.

Great smile, happy warrior of the party Lincoln built.

Better yet, a bold visionary with a plan to make America great again.

999

Yea for Herman and the birth of Cainsian Economics!

Now, this is tax reform everybody can believe strongly in because the Man with the Great Big Smile promises us it is "revenue neutral."

That is comforting.

Still, something is nagging at me.

I can't exactly put my finger on it.

Perhaps it has something to do with a fact check.

You see, for 80% of his fellow citizens, their federal taxes will rocket like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Of course, as it is revenue neutral, there has to be an offset to reach that condition, so his Yin and Yang of neutrality is made up by some tax savings for neediest of Americans: the top 20% of Americans. You know, those poor misunderstood patriotic Americans under siege by class warfare.

They're going to receive tax savings equal to the tax increases for the 80% of Americans who don't work as hard as they do, are not as smart as them, and who whine too much.

Hmmm.

Perhaps Bachmann's onto something.

666.

Not since the Great Depression have U.S. people faced as challenging a political test as they do now. Can they recover or is the American Century behind us?

Has American political thought been reduced to the craziness of somebody hearing voices or a man who proudly proclaims his 999 crazy ideas?