The Politics of Raising Cain

Roger L. Simon sees Cain's campaign as a challenge to political professionals like Rove.

Cillizza & Blake: Why Herman Cain Can Win

Amy Gardner, Cain's Staff Trying to Keep Up

(Interestingly, she notes that Cain's trip to Tennessee may be because a lot of Country music people like him. This may answer the question some have been asking about why he's going there, like the next article.)

Cain's Curious Month Off

Was SimCity Cain's Inspiration for the 9-9-9 Plan? An amusing diversion ...

Discussions of Cain's 999 Plan

999 on Cain's Website and in an editorial in USA Today

The phases of Cain's plan, copied from his website:

Phase 1, 9-9-9:

• Zero capital gains tax
• Ends the Death Tax.
• Eliminates double taxation of dividends
• Business Flat Tax – 9%
• Gross income less all investments, all purchases from other businesses and all dividends paid to shareholders.
• Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for payroll employed in the zone.
• Individual Flat Tax – 9%.
• Gross income less charitable deductions.
• Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for those living and/or working in the zone.
• National Sales Tax – 9%.
• This gets the Fair Tax off the sidelines and into the game.

Phase 2, the Fair Tax:

• Amidst a backdrop of the economic boom created by the Phase 1 Enhanced Plan, I will begin the process of educating the American people on the benefits of continuing the next step to the Fair Tax.
• The Fair Tax would ultimately replace individual and corporate income taxes.
• It would make it possible to end the IRS as we know it.
• The Fair Tax makes our exported goods and services the most competitively internationally than any other tax system.

Discussion of pros, cons, and what the heck does it all mean [this section will get filled out over the weekend, if you care to stop back]:

Nathan Lewis at Forbes, Flat Tax vs. Fair Tax vs. Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Plan

Edward Morissey at the Fiscal Times, 9-9-Nein! The Herman Cain Mutiny

Bruce Bartlett in the NYT, Inside the Cain Tax Plan

5 Reasons to Reject It

Cain Picks Up Support

from Art Laffer

"Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan would be a vast improvement over the current tax system and a boon to the U.S. economy," Laffer told HUMAN EVENTS in a statement. "The goal of supply-side tax reform is always a broadening of the tax base and lowering of marginal tax rates."

Added Laffer: "Mr. Cain’s plan is simple, transparent, neutral with respect to capital and labor, and savings and consumption, and also greatly decreases the hidden costs of tax compliance. There is no doubt that economic growth would surge upon implementation of 9-9-9."

Laffer also said that "such a system provides the least avenues to avoid paying taxes, yet also maintains the strongest incentives for work effort, production, and investment."

Haley Barbour

“If this election is where it ought to be, and that is a referendum on how President Obama is doing, Republicans are going to win. If Herman Cain is our nominee against Barack Obama, I think he’ll sweep the south," Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) told Laura Ingraham today.

Paul Ryan

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan says he “loves” presidential candidate Herman Cain’s signature “9-9-9″ tax plan.

Ryan told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview that Cain’s plan is a good starting point for debate, and shows the GOP presidential campaign season has entered into a more advanced stage where ideas — not just personalities — have come to the forefront.

A spokesman for Ryan later clarified that Ryan wasn't endorsing Cain.