Norquist Compares Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Plan to Tapeworms

New GOP frontrunner Herman Cain has gained a lot of attention around his proposed “economic fix”, a rewrite of the tax code that he’s dubbed his 9-9-9 Plan. His proposed plan is to reform the tax code so that capital gains tax, income tax, and sales tax are a flat 9% rate for everyone. This would be a federal tax, which many analysts say could actually raise taxes for a significant number of the lowest income Americans. Even America’s conservative tax master, Grover Norquist, has had criticism for Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan, calling it “dangerous” and even comparing them to tapeworms.

Grover Norquist is the president of the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform, an organization that actually began under Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s to address the 1986 rewrite of the tax code. Norquist, most recently, has been in the media for his role in the summer deadlock regarding the federal budget and proposed debt ceiling raise. Americans for Tax Reform released a Tax Pledge, a document that became an instrument of party ideology in their efforts to never raise taxes for any reason, and a major hurdle for bipartisan compromise in Washington. Herman Cain has signed the pledge.

Most recently, Norquist was publicly critical of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan on ABC News’ Topline. "I'm very concerned about three different taxes -- every one of them can grow.” He went on, in a rather bizarre analogy, to explain how new taxes could grow like tapeworms. “To put tapeworms in your tummy to try and maintain your weight -- they may have their own idea about their growth patterns and what they want to do. Creating new taxes is a very dangerous project.” Chris Wallace of Fox News echoed this idea, asking Cain what would keep his 9-9-9 Plan from becoming a “12-12-12 plan”. Cain said as President he would require a two-thirds vote from Senate to raise the tax rates; a move that has no constitutional validity.

Norquist did praise the intent of Cain’s tax reform proposal, saying, “I applaud Herman Cain's statement that the present system is too high, it's too redistributionist, it moves money from one side to another. Let's take rates radically down, let's end this double- and triple-taxation of savings.” Regardless, given Cain present plan, he ended his thoughts on the Cain plan by saying that, "If this bill was before Congress, I would say, vote no.”