9-9-9 Explained and Exposed

For this politically independent government worker, the events within political playground are nerve wracking, not the least of which is the Republican playing field for the 2012 election. Most recently, Herman Cain has surged to the fore with his 9-9-9 tax plan overhaul. proponents of this tax plan have raved about how it is the most fair plan because of its even percentage that all would have to pay. I have decided to throw in my two cents on this plan, and expose it for what it is: anti-poor, anti-elderly, and anti-small business.

What is the 9-9-9 plan? Put simply, the 9-9-9 plan states that everyone would pay a 9 percent income tax, corporations would pay a 9 percent corporate tax, and there would be an implementation of a national 9 percent sales tax (over and above any state sales tax you already pay). Cain states that this is fair, alleging that everyone across the board would pay the same rate of taxes. It makes sense, doesn't it? But after taking this plan out of the vacuum of theory and placing into the real world, it is not what it seems.

Let's look at the 9 percent income tax for all. Called a "flat tax", this tax is actually regressive in how it disproportionately effects the poor. If we look at it in terms of the tax payer's post-tax wealth relative to the price of necessities, we can see that this tax punishes those of lower income. Not convinced? Let's look at an example: assume we have two tax payers. The first tax payer makes $100K per year. (Wouldn't that be nice?) His 9 percent tax would be $9k. The second tax payer makes $30k, so their tax would be $2,700 per year. That seems fair, right? The person that makes more, pays more and the person that makes less pays less. Now, lets look at each of these people after they pay those taxes. The first one, has a remaining $91k while the second has a remaining $27,300. Since the prices of goods that each of these tax payers are buying are the same, the post-tax wealth that each person has is not equal relative to the common goods they both purchase. This is where it gets complicated, so stay with me. The price of bread is a much smaller portion of the first tax payer's income than it is of the second. This means that the utility, or buying power, of each dollar spent for the second tax payer (the poorer one) is of greater value because they have less dollars to spend, and therefore, they have more to lose by paying the same tax rate as the the wealthier person. Hardly fair to those who currently live on a low or fixed income.

Now, lets look at the 9 percent corporate tax rate. The argument against this corporate flat tax is the same as the flat income tax explained above. The difference would simply exchange the rich and poor taxpayers to a big and small corporation. The incomes between these examples may be drastically different, but the principles are the same: the corporations that have a greater revenue stream than the small corporation, but the smaller corporation would have more to lose with a flat tax since they receive a greater utility out of each dollar earned and spent. By applying this critique to the flat corporate tax, we can see this portion of the plan is anti-small business--hardly what our economy needs right now!

Lastly we turn to the 9 percent national sales tax. This was proposed earlier in 2007 as a replacement for the income tax bracket all together. Called a "Fair Tax", this tax system was meant to create a tax revenue stream across the board for anyone purchasing anything in the United States. It's proponents stated that there would be no way to avoid the tax as many wealthy and those who are paid under the table purchase goods here. Certainly a clever idea, I agree. Its opponents state that it would increase overall cost of goods, but advocates believe that this increase in cost would be offset by the absence of an income tax.

However, this tax is also regressive. It simply takes the critique of the flat tax and turns it on its head; instead of forcing the poor to pay a greater utility of their income, it diminishes the purchasing power of these dollars. Since the wealthy have more dollars with which to use, they feel the hurt of a price increase less than those who have less dollars to spend. The one thing the Fair Tax plan had over Cain's 9-9-9 plan: fair tax got rid of the income tax, where as Cain's plan compounds the hurt. It not only takes away more buying power from the poor, but it devalues the dollars those people have left!

Herman Cain's plan was clearly not thought with the elderly, impoverished, and the middle-class in mind. With the economic repercussions outlined above, Cain's 9-9-9 plan not only accentuates the economic divide, it will exponentially expand it. For a country built on Christian ideals of helping those less fortunate, this plan is anti-elderly, anti-poor, and clearly, anti-American.

Photography

While at a family reunion recently, I was asked why I always took pictures of landscapes and not that of people. There's a lot of money in wedding photography, for example. And yes, I'm sure the small, secluded town of Staunton, VA certainly has a market for it. That said, my answer was simple.

I do not take photographs of people, because when they look upon my photographs, they do it through the lens of their own insecurity. Especially in wedding photography, the patron commissions the photographer to make every blemish disappear, and fix every issue this person sees--whether it exists or not. (With this in mind, I think the exploitative use of Photoshop has completely blurred our sense of reality, beauty, while exacerbating our insecurities.) As a photographer, I refuse to take money in exchange for making one's insecurities disappear. That's what psychologists are for.

I take pictures of landscapes because a landscape will never tell me what is wrong with my photo of it. It has an understanding, that I will do my very best to show it off in the glory it deserves. I think the key here is that God created all that is around us, including myself, and therefore trusts my God-given talent to represent his creation accurately and respectfully--and He is satisfied with every outcome. I doubt a photographer will ever get such a response from a human being.