WASHINGTON – Republicans just don’t get it. Tea Party Republicans like Mr. Cain are the worst. They come up with snappy slogans that sell, but the bottom line always ends up hurting the people seduced to vote against their own interests by these right-wing charlatans.
If you have a family of four with an income of just under $50,000, they could end up paying more under the Cain plan. Currently, they are taxed around $3,850 in income tax. Under Cain’s plan, they would be taxed at 9 percent or pay $4,500.
That’s $650 more.
Although the family would save almost $4,000 in Social Security taxes, it would have to give up the child tax credit worth the same amount. Furthermore, it would pay an additional national sales tax of 9 percent on everything purchased, including groceries and clothes, which totals about $2,000.
That means under the Cain plan that family could end up paying $2,725 more.
“It’s going to raise the price of just about everything by about 9 percent,” said former George W. Bush economic policy adviser Bruce Bartlett. “We know from experience and analysis that that tends to hurt people with low incomes.”
Yesterday with Chuck Todd on “The Daily Rundown,” Peter Hart talked about Cain’s appeal. He said it’s all about “balancing his own check book” and that he’s a “regular guy.”
So, now we’ve replaced the who-do-you-want-to-have-a-beer-with mentality with the Tea-Party-pack-are-regular-guy’s prattle. For Mr. Cain, this equates to his ice cream slogan: “Haagen-Dazs black walnut tastes good all the time.” Is it any wonder we are where we are?
Unfortunately for Herman Cain, as it turns out, according to an ABC News report, Haagen Dazs no longer makes black walnut ice cream.
It gives new meaning to the words “flavor of the month.”
Taylor Marsh’s new e-book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss will be published in November by Premier Digital Publishing. Marsh is an author, Washington based political analyst, veteran national politics writer and commentator on national politics, foreign policy, and women in power. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her blog.