Cain challenged us in the debate to read the independent analysis of 9-9-9... Please help!

[ChromiumL]

I'm not a fan of Cain's 999 plan, but I was curious after the last debate to see his 'independent analysis' that went against the Tax Policy Center's analysis.

First off, the analysis is done by a private financial services (http://www.fiscalassociatesinc.com/new/fiscalassociates/default.asp) firm with 5 (including the secretary) employees. None of them have a PhD in Economics (not that you can't know what is going on without a PhD, but I would expect serious analysis of a national tax plan to be done by at least one person with a PhD), and only 2 have degrees in anything related to finance.

But, once again, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and read the 'analysis (http://www.hermancain.com/docs/999_Scoring_Report.pdf)' anyways (FYI--took me a while to figure out that the charts (http://www.hermancain.com/docs/999_Scoring_Tables.pdf) are located seperately from the analysis document for some reason). Both are located on Cain's website, in the header under the 999 plan section. Oh--and there are tons of typos (maybe because they posted the 'draft' copy--as seen in the footer--on their website?)

I'm no PhD in Economics, but I have taken a decent number of Economics classes, and the analysis just doesn't make sense to me at all. Maybe I'm just a fool--and that's why I'm here. I need someone better than me at Economics to look this over and 'please' tell me that this isn't just a bunch of poorly written financial mumbo-jumbo. If this really is as bad as I think it is, then the media totally needs to be reporting on it!!

Here are a few example paragraphs that just don't make sense to me.

From Pg 3 (Last paragraph on the page):



"In the course of imputing non-business capital income, Commerce reclassifies the purchases of
homes and the capital of nonprofits from consumption to investment. For our purposes, to
measure the investment purchases made by businesses, this reclassification must be reversed.
As Table 1c shows, removing the imputed items and reclassifying investment reduces total
GDP from $14,396 billion to $12,966 billion, or about 9.8 percent. The biggest change is the
25 percent reduction in investment from $2,097 billion to $1,576 billion."


Umm... I can read the words, but I can't understand why they need to reverse this? Is it just to get the answers they want, or is there some logical reason for this that I'm missing?

From Pg 9 (First paragraph in the comprehensive variant section).


"Also subject to tax is compensation in the institution sector and the untaxed
services provided by the financial sector."
Can anyone describe to me what an 'institution sector' is or includes?

From Pg 10 (Only paragraph in the economic impacts of broad reform section):



"Table 11 shows the static and dynamic results of adopting one of the broad-based alternatives
shown above. In the long run GDP would be nearly $2 trillion larger than the 2008 baseline or
nearly 15% higher. The private business capital stock would be more than one-third higher.
Hours worked would be 4.4% higher translating into 6 million more jobs. Not shown is that
wage rates will be 10% higher. Total federal receipts would be nearly 15% higher. This means
that rates could be reduced by another 4 percentage points while maintaining a constant level of
federal revenues."


I should note that table 11 includes such gems as 'current surplus of government enterprises = -4'... WTF? Oh, and they don't describe anywhere how they come up with the above figures. This is seriously the only paragraph on the economic impacts, and may only be there because the other analysis seems to suggest that Cain needs to have a 13-13-13 plan instead of the much more catchy 9-9-9.

There are far more problems I have than this, but most just involve being totally confused by the general point they are trying to make. Please read it and see if it makes sense to you!!

[hillertexas]

bump

[Bern]

http://images.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/10794560.jpg

[TexMac]

How bizarre is this? Here's the same paper from 1996:

http://www.ipi.org/ipi/IPIPublications.nsf/eb6b58c80993aa18862567da00686d4c/f14c7240929a433a862567ea002277e8?OpenDocument

Did they just copy it?

[TexMac]

OK, this paper has been around since 1996 and was written to argue that a flat tax can be revenue neutral. It's not anything written specifically about Cain's 999 thing. It looks like this guy

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-j-glencer-cfp%C2%AE/23/788/232

just copied it and Cain put it on his website. Glencer looks like an accountant guy with a BA degree from Eastern Michigan U and the rest of this crap is online and correspondence stuff:


College for Financial Planning, Master of Science: Major in Wealth Management
- Eastern Michigan University, Bachelor of Business Administration
- CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®)
- Chartered Retirement Counselor
- Accredited Wealth Management Advisor
- Securities registered through LPL Financial
- Licensed for Life and Health Insurance

Pretty shady, really.

[TexMac]

Notice how the paper refers to tables and there are no tables in the paper?

There are tables here:

http://www.ipi.org/IPI/IPIPublications.nsf/PublicationLookupFullTextPDF/53C5756D77FDA52F862567EA00229B05/$File/taxbase.pdf?OpenElement

They took that 1996 paper and pulled the tables out of it and slapped it up on Herman's website. Jeez, don't journalists google anything anymore?

[TexMac]

http://i.imgur.com/VSRRJ.jpg

[fatjohn]

Euh, clearly Mr Cain has surrounded him with economist that are superior in anything they do compared with the RPF folk. Believe me, it's legit. Now let it go already, sheesh.

[cucucachu0000]

Wow we need to email this to all the networks hopefully someone will pick this up and do more investigateing. This really shows how unprofessional and non serious the cain campaign is.

[cucucachu0000]

Drudge all the links and a small explanation of what we found too!

[jmdrake]

WTH? I can't believe anyone is falling for this crap. The "analysis" by Cain's buddies doesn't answer the fundamental question will you John Q citizen have to pay more or less tax under the Cain plan? The analysis from the Tax Policy center is that everyone with incomes under $200,000 will have a tax increase. Is that right or wrong? The Cain analysis doesn't even attempt to answer that question.

[TexMac]

That's because it isn't a "Cain analysis." It's an old paper written about various flat tax plans.

[cucucachu0000]

Man this is where cain startshis fall I think. He's a joke and were peeling away to the truth with every word he speaks. He's like the fred thompson of last election, a gimick people like but then people realize he's over his head.

[RDM]

Email all these findings to John Stossell. He seems to be a fairly smart guy and has done some really good investigative reporting in the past. But I agree with OP, someone needs to gather all the info and submit it to whomever you can think of. You email this to 100 different places someone is bound to run with it.

[TexMac]

I sent it to some journos on twitter. And Jack Hunter.

[IterTemporis]

Isn't this plagiarism then?

[RDM]

I sent it to some journos on twitter. And Jack Hunter.

Great! That's a start. Is there anyone within the campaign that has strong connections with someone whom can investigate this thoroughly and report on it?

[TexMac]

Looks like it to me. Unless they got permission. I found the paper posted here also:

http://socialsecurityinstitute.com/news/policy-studies/budget-and-taxation/consistent-tax-bases-for-broad-based-reform

It looks like the Fiscal Associates guy was trying to make an internet version of a paper trail. He took the tables out and made them links. Then when they posted it on Cain's site, they used a pdf and put the tables in a separate pdf. I guess they thought no one would ever google it.

[Liberty4life]

It seems to me that trying to get the Judge on board with this would get the best traction, didn't he blackout his eyes on fb ?

[RDM]

I sent it to some journos on twitter. And Jack Hunter.

Hey, I found this on another post about abortion on these forums. Its seems this Iowa radio host has been researching Cain on various topics. It appears this guy has a broad listening base.

From post:
That evolution was already on display in a column posted Thursday by Iowa radio talk show host Steve Deace, where he ran through his concerns about Cain's positions on the TARP bailout, the Federal Reserve, foreign policy, gay marriage, abortion and gun rights.

Find how to contact this guy. Give him all the info you guys have and send it.

Now that I'm thinking about this. Maybe we need to do a search for every state. Search for radio guys that do hard hitting reporting. People that have a solid listening base in their state that may run with a story on Cain and all his issues. These radio guys have loyal listeners and are respected. As long as we have solid evidence on issues we may get some to do some investigative reporting. If we can cover a good portion of the country with local reporting on Cain, we might be able to bring this guy down.

[hillertexas]

wow... this thing might have legs. We need to condense this into a palatable format and send it out to everyone.


It looks like the Fiscal Associates guy was trying to make an internet version of a paper trail. He took the tables out and made them links. Then when they posted it on Cain's site, they used a pdf and put the tables in a separate pdf. I guess they thought no one would ever google it.

Very interesting. You think that Cain and David G (or someone at "Fiscal Associates") are working together? They would have to be, wouldn't they?

So someone with Fiscal Associates took the paper from 1996, reworked it, and is trying to leave a "paper" trail....so that when Cain puts it on his website, it traces back to a reworked source and not the actual source.

If so....this might not be the first time Cain has used this tactic.

[TexMac]

I never listen to radio, so I have no idea about those. Any of you who know how to push this or have an idea, just link this thread to people you think can help.

[Bern]

Awesome work TexMac. + rep

[JorgeStevenson]

We should also contact Ron's campaign, so that at the next debate when Cain says he had an independent analysis and it's freely available on his website, Paul can put the dagger in him.

BTW...at first I thought the OP had just gone to the wrong website (because the document didn't mention 9-9-9 at all). He didn't. That is legitimately the "scoring report" that Cain has on his website. Here's a link to his website's 9-9-9 section. Click on "scoring report" in the upper right and you'll be linked to this document.

http://www.hermancain.com/999plan

[RDM]

I never listen to radio, so I have no idea about those. Any of you who know how to push this or have an idea, just link this thread to people you think can help.

I've got a idea. Maybe you can do this since I'm new on board and you seem to have some credibility here on the boards.

Here's my idea. Can we some how set up a area on these boards for the sole purpose of investigating candidates. What I have in mind is separate folders for various subjects.

For example: A compiled list of investigative reporters across the country. ( Either in radio, tv, newspapers, etc.) These would be local people in all parts of the country.
We have plenty of members on this board from every state and many towns. Everyone submits credible contact info for reference if they have it.

When serious issues are posted about opposing candidates that are credible stories, we can have selected individuals who want to step to the plate, to compile info in a professional manner and have a designated person or persons email or snail mail info to the database of investigative reporters we have compiled from all parts of the country. If we are to create good alliances with these reporters across the nation, they can become our ally on exposing candidates. The lamestream media will not do it and heck maybe in the process we might be able to boost someone's career.

[TexMac]

Getting bites from reporters on this! :eek:

[hillertexas]

Media Email Addresses (may be outdated)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x1903
http://www.rumormillnews.com/MEDIA_EMAIL_ADDRESSES.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/ns2/briancrocker/News_Media_Email_Addresses.htm

[TexMac]

Talking to a reporter from Talking Points Memo right now. They can really push this out.

[Bern]

I'm trying to spread this virally.

[flightlesskiwi]

Talking to a reporter from Talking Points Memo right now. They can really push this out.

TexMac, you non-smart Ron Paul supporting American, you! (<--according to Herman Cain, anyway)

+rep! AWESOME find!

[TexMac]

How dumb do you have to be to post a plagiarized doc on your presidential candidate website? DUH! And he calls us stupid....

[TexMac]

wow... this thing might have legs. We need to condense this into a palatable format and send it out to everyone.



Very interesting. You think that Cain and David G (or someone at "Fiscal Associates") are working together? They would have to be, wouldn't they?

So someone with Fiscal Associates took the paper from 1996, reworked it, and is trying to leave a "paper" trail....so that when Cain puts it on his website, it traces back to a reworked source and not the actual source.

If so....this might not be the first time Cain has used this tactic.

These guys at the Social Security Institute website are interesting, too. Check out the staff page. Looks like Republican astroturf setup.

http://socialsecurityinstitute.com/about-us/staff/larry-ward

Larry Ward, Bush retread:

http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/training/Bio.cfm?SchoolID=18809&FacultyID=494150

http://www.linkedin.com/in/larryward


Meanwhile, Political Media president Larry Ward confirms that a conservative group privately hired his consulting firm to develop a campaign to undermine the three frontrunners. Ward’s team came up with the brilliant idea of “Rudy McRomney,” a three-headed cartoon rhinosceros—as in RINO, or “Republican in Name Only.” (Ward, a Dick Morris protégé, assures me that his client is not one of the other presidential contenders.)
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=will_the_gop_make_a_statement

Hmmm...I wonder why they needed that Financial Associates guy in on it? Insulation?

[wgadget]

2005 - 2011 Americans for Prosperity
Starting in 2005, Cain worked for the Koch family funded Americans for Prosperity(AFP) alongside Mark Block. Block would later become campaign manager for Cain's 2012 Presidential run and would be joined in Cain's campaign by several other AFP employees. Cain continued to receive honorariums for speaking at AFP events until he announced his campaign for the Republican nomination.[48]
Cain's close ties to Americans for Prosperity have come under increasing scrutiny as major U.S. news agencies have uncovered close ties between AFP and the Koch Brothers, the billionaire brothers who have been credited for much of the success of the Tea Party Movement. It has also been reported that Cain's 9-9-9 plan has been credited to a "businessman" that served on the AFP board. [49]

2009 Hermanator's Intelligent Thinkers Movement
In 2009, Cain founded "Hermanator's Intelligent Thinkers Movement" (HITM), aimed at organizing 100,000 activists in every congressional district in the United States in support of a strong national defense, the FairTax, tax cuts, energy independence, capping government spending, and restructuring Social Security.[citation needed]

48 ^ "Herman Cain’s deep ties to Koch brothers key to campaign." AP, 16 October 2011.
^ "Long Ties to Koch Brothers Key to Cain's Campaign." ABC, 16 October 2011.
Political campaigns

[wgadget]

Oh, also re: Herman Cain.

I heard Cain's friends talking about him on the radio today (Boortz and Jamie Dupree). Dupree said that Herman is still taking $25,000 honorariums for his "motivational speeches."

[wgadget]

You guys are so smart...NOW I know why you're getting on his "last nerve."

LOL

[TexMac]

Up until recently, Cain has failed to really show the numbers behind his plan which he claims will generate $450 billion in revenue and create millions of jobs. He has repeatedly said he wouldn’t share the names of his advisors because people only want to target them in order to go after him and his 9-9-9 plan. But tonight, the campaign started to release a few names and spoke more about Fiscal Associates, Inc., the company Cain used to score his plan.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/10/cains-9-9-9-plan-gets-grilled-at-cnn-debate/

Just gathering up some links...

[RDM]

2005 - 2011 Americans for Prosperity
Starting in 2005, Cain worked for the Koch family funded Americans for Prosperity(AFP) alongside Mark Block. Block would later become campaign manager for Cain's 2012 Presidential run and would be joined in Cain's campaign by several other AFP employees. Cain continued to receive honorariums for speaking at AFP events until he announced his campaign for the Republican nomination.[48]
Cain's close ties to Americans for Prosperity have come under increasing scrutiny as major U.S. news agencies have uncovered close ties between AFP and the Koch Brothers, the billionaire brothers who have been credited for much of the success of the Tea Party Movement. It has also been reported that Cain's 9-9-9 plan has been credited to a "businessman" that served on the AFP board. [49]

2009 Hermanator's Intelligent Thinkers Movement
In 2009, Cain founded "Hermanator's Intelligent Thinkers Movement" (HITM), aimed at organizing 100,000 activists in every congressional district in the United States in support of a strong national defense, the FairTax, tax cuts, energy independence, capping government spending, and restructuring Social Security.[citation needed]
Political campaigns

He has been slowly groomed for this moment. This is how the "establishment" operates. Future candidates are "selected" by some sort of faction or factions and are recommended as prospects for political offices. It's like a secret club that works in unison in grooming "approved" candidates that work for the common goal. These candidates do not just run for office on a whim. It's a orchestrated plan for when and where and for what. The brainstorming for elections are strategically mapped out and campaign strategies are implemented according to plan.

[wgadget]

So does he own the company? LOL

[wgadget]

He has been slowly groomed for this moment. This is how the "establishment" operates. Future candidates are "selected" by some sort of faction or factions and are recommended as prospects for political offices. It's like a secret club that works in unison in grooming "approved" candidates that work for the common goal. These candidates do not just run for office on a whim. It's a orchestrated plan for when and where and for what. The brainstorming for elections are strategically mapped out and campaign strategies are implemented according to plan.

But-but-but---

I thought GOD* told him to run.

*Depending on who you are, GOD may sometimes be equated with Lord Blankfein of Goldman Sachs.

[TexMac]

At Tuesday's GOP candidate debate in New Hampshire, Mr. Cain said that "we've had an outside firm ...dynamically score it, and so our numbers will make it revenue-neutral."

That firm, Fiscal Associates Inc., found that Mr. Cain's plan would raise about $2.3 trillion—or roughly the same amount as the current tax system—without counting the economic growth it would produce. Counting such growth, the new system would raise about $2.66 trillion, according to the firm's estimate. "It looked pretty straightforward to me," said Gary Robbins, a conservative tax expert who is president of the consultancy. "I'm pretty comfortable" with the results.

It was not known whether the calculation takes into account the exemptions Mr. Cain announced Wednesday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204774604576627440442708356.html



Wall Street Journal Oct 13 2011

[Cleaner44]

Herman Cain's Sorry Defense of His 9-9-9 Plan
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/herman-cain-999-plan-debate

Andy Kroll the author of this report may be a good ally here.
akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com

[TexMac]

FactCheck has this:


Cain said an “independent firm” conducted an analysis of his plan and found that it is revenue neutral. Cain identified that firm in a CNBC interview as Fiscal Associates of Virginia, whose work has long been cited by FairTax proponents. Americans for Fair Taxation, a group that advocates for a FairTax, says in a 2007 white paper that a FairTax “would increase the GDP by 36.3 percent and increase private output by 48.4 percent over the long run,” citing the work of Gary and Aldona Robbins of Fiscal Associates.

In a phone interview, Gary Robbins confirmed that his firm did the analysis for Cain. He said he used 2008 economic data and determined that the three taxes combined would generate about $2.3 trillion — each producing about a third of the total revenue stream. That’s about $200 billion short of how much the federal government collected in revenues that year. But, he said, $200 billion would come from “other sources,” such as revenues from the Federal Reserve. So, he claims, it is revenue neutral. As for tax fairness, he said he did not determine the impact on different income groups. He said he was not asked to produce income distribution tables common for major tax proposals.

“I wasn’t asked to do that and I have not,” he said, when asked about the shift in tax burden. “My guess is that some people across the whole spectrum would be worse off and likewise better off.”

Robbins speculated that the low income “would be taken care of,” because the payroll tax would be eliminated and only income above a certain level would be taxed. However, low-income families spend a disproportionate amount of their incomes on food, housing and medicine — all things that Robbins said would be subject to the new national sales tax. Robbins insisted that the price of goods and services would be reduced by Cain’s plan, so the impact would be lessened on the poor. But the bottom line: Robbins doesn’t know for sure because he hasn’t done an analysis that shows how Cain’s plan will affect different income groups.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/10/tales-from-new-hampshire/

So, this is not plagiarism. It is smoke and mirrors, as Robbins did not do any sort of an analysis. He just recycled an old paper and tried to make it new looking. And, Cain either lied about the "analysis" or Robbins lied to Cain because this is a 25 year old paper, posted as if it "scored" Cain's plan..

[RabbitMan]

So...this is still News right? Sounds rather fishy...

[TexMac]

It's news in that Cain can is passing a 1996 paper off verbatim as current "analysis" of his plan. So he lied about it being "scored" by this Robbins guy. How interested the media will be in it, I don't know.

[Steve-in-NY]

IPI Policy Report - # 135
Which Tax Reform Plan: Developing Consistent Tax Bases for Broad-based Reform
by Gary Robbins, Aldona Robbins on 01/01/1996

Gary Robbins wrote the paper, so he analyzed it his own paper?
Also this:

I noticed the name Gary Robbins from a politico article that said he was a paid campaign consultant "who scored the plan for Cain" and that "Cain has repeatedly declined to name the people involved with crafting the plan" as well as a quote from Robbins stating “It’s not a plan that I concocted,” Robbins said. “There’s nothing wrong with the plan, it just wouldn’t be the one I picked.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65762.html

[ChromiumL]

I can't believe that the paper is just reworked from 1996 and has absolutely nothing directly to do with the 9-9-9 plan! What's really sad is that the 1996 document is so much better done--all of the charts have explanations and seem to make sense--unlike the copy on Cain's website. I'd really love for a real economist to dig their teeth into the analysis and figure out if its reasonable or just plain crazy.

It seems to me that the main points that need to be publicized are that the plan is just a recycled paper from 1996, and that it wasn't even originally done to support the 9-9-9 plan. And, I suppose that there is also nothing in the report saying taxes wouldn't be raised on the poor--which Herman Cain claimed in the last debate. Am I missing something here?

[TexMac]

There's no real analysis in it, it's just a paper comparing different kinds of flat taxes to see how revenue neutral they are. It doesn't address the impact on real people.

[Steve-in-NY]

From this point forward I shall refer to what was formerly "999" to "1996".
That being said, Cains 1996 plan sucks regardless of who wrote it.

[RDM]

What's the status with TPM TexMac? Are they working with you? Are you forwarding all of your findings? I think there's enough here to blow this wide open IMO. I would love to have someone big in the media take this on and expose it. Right now, Teflon Cain is getting away with lies and flip flops and nothing is bringing him down.

[freeforall]

Can someone give a really simplified version of this?

[Steve-in-NY]

Can someone give a really simplified version of this?
Much of the text in the "analysis" of Herman Cains 999 plan is an exact match to a paper written in 1996 by a guy named Gary Robbins.

Herman Cain wont reveal who wrote 999.
Gary Robbins is the one who got Cain the 999 plan.
Gary Robbins has said he did not author 999.
Gary Robbins conducted a 10-page analysis of the plan and found it to be revenue neutral.
Gary Robbins is one of Herman Cains campaign consultants.

[RDM]

Hey, I found this on another post about abortion on these forums. Its seems this Iowa radio host has been researching Cain on various topics. It appears this guy has a broad listening base.

From post:
That evolution was already on display in a column posted Thursday by Iowa radio talk show host Steve Deace, where he ran through his concerns about Cain's positions on the TARP bailout, the Federal Reserve, foreign policy, gay marriage, abortion and gun rights.

Find how to contact this guy. Give him all the info you guys have and send it.

Now that I'm thinking about this. Maybe we need to do a search for every state. Search for radio guys that do hard hitting reporting. People that have a solid listening base in their state that may run with a story on Cain and all his issues. These radio guys have loyal listeners and are respected. As long as we have solid evidence on issues we may get some to do some investigative reporting. If we can cover a good portion of the country with local reporting on Cain, we might be able to bring this guy down.

Ok, Here's the contact info for this guy in Iowa.
Call 515-284-1040 or 800-469-4295
Email stevedeace@whoradio.com
website: http://www.whoradio.com/pages/stevedeace.html

Email him all the info we have on Cain, also I would email any info on Romney that's credible enough to expose him.

Let's see if this guy will take this and run with it. He appears to be a Christian guy so be cordial. I'm sure this guy is into honesty and values. If we can use this guy to help us expose these flip floppers and liars in Iowa, this can be a plus. It appears he has a following.

[Steve-in-NY]

I emailed politico and an alaskadispatch (unusual I know, but likely to look and publish) so far. Also tweeted.

[Bern]

Much of the text in Herman Cains 999 plan is an exact match to a paper written in 1996 by a guy named Gary Robbins. ...

The text of the 999 plan? or just the "analysis" of the plan?

[RDM]

Here's another contact that may run with this:

They are called Watchdog.org
They do political investigation reporting.
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Watchdog.org

[TexMac]

The text of the 999 plan? or just the "analysis" of the plan?

Just the "analysis."

[Bern]

That's what I thought. Steve-in-NY was confusing the issue.

[Carole]

OK, this paper has been around since 1996 and was written to argue that a flat tax can be revenue neutral. It's not anything written specifically about Cain's 999 thing. It looks like this guy

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-j-glencer-cfp%C2%AE/23/788/232

just copied it and Cain put it on his website. Glencer looks like an accountant guy with a BA degree from Eastern Michigan U and the rest of this crap is online and correspondence stuff:

Pretty shady, really.

Looks as though they changed some of the wordings, rather than merely copied it. Figures changed, of course, but very similar in many areas. Reworked plan for 2011.

So if I understand correctly, Cain is using a refashioned twentieth century tax plan to solve a twenty-first century problem. ? :D

[Steve-in-NY]

That's what I thought. Steve-in-NY was confusing the issue.
Sorry, will edit to suit.

[heavenlyboy34]

+rep @ TexMac :cool:

[sailingaway]

This has been picked up, and this thread is linked by, Mediate, and apparently Ben Stein at Politico:

http://www.mediaite.com/online/did-herman-cain-borrow-his-9-9-9-plan-from-a-96-report-ron-paul-supporters-think-so/

[TexMac]

Oh, good, they got it right.

[TexMac]

Politico's piece isn't linked. I guess they're too cool for us. :)

[Original_Intent]

Boo, the Politico piece does not even attribute the Mediaite piece OR RPF/TexMac. Boo!

[TexMac]

I tried to submit stuff to politico but it kept failing on the captcha, so I didn't think it went through. Maybe it did? Or did they do their piece from Mediaite's?

[Steve-in-NY]

I emailed politico directly earlier.

[TexMac]

I emailed politico directly earlier.Great!

[Agorism]

bump

[Carole]

I'm not a fan of Cain's 999 plan, but I was curious after the last debate to see his 'independent analysis' that went against the Tax Policy Center's analysis.

First off, the analysis is done by a private financial services (http://www.fiscalassociatesinc.com/new/fiscalassociates/default.asp) firm with 5 (including the secretary) employees. None of them have a PhD in Economics (not that you can't know what is going on without a PhD, but I would expect serious analysis of a national tax plan to be done by at least one person with a PhD), and only 2 have degrees in anything related to finance.

But, once again, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and read the 'analysis (http://www.hermancain.com/docs/999_Scoring_Report.pdf)' anyways (FYI--took me a while to figure out that the charts (http://www.hermancain.com/docs/999_Scoring_Tables.pdf) are located seperately from the analysis document for some reason). Both are located on Cain's website, in the header under the 999 plan section. Oh--and there are tons of typos (maybe because they posted the 'draft' copy--as seen in the footer--on their website?)

I'm no PhD in Economics, but I have taken a decent number of Economics classes, and the analysis just doesn't make sense to me at all. Maybe I'm just a fool--and that's why I'm here. I need someone better than me at Economics to look this over and 'please' tell me that this isn't just a bunch of poorly written financial mumbo-jumbo. If this really is as bad as I think it is, then the media totally needs to be reporting on it!!

Here are a few example paragraphs that just don't make sense to me.

From Pg 3 (Last paragraph on the page):



"In the course of imputing non-business capital income, Commerce reclassifies the purchases of
homes and the capital of nonprofits from consumption to investment. For our purposes, to
measure the investment purchases made by businesses, this reclassification must be reversed.
As Table 1c shows, removing the imputed items and reclassifying investment reduces total
GDP from $14,396 billion to $12,966 billion, or about 9.8 percent. The biggest change is the
25 percent reduction in investment from $2,097 billion to $1,576 billion."


Umm... I can read the words, but I can't understand why they need to reverse this? Is it just to get the answers they want, or is there some logical reason for this that I'm missing?

From Pg 9 (First paragraph in the comprehensive variant section).


"Also subject to tax is compensation in the institution sector and the untaxed
services provided by the financial sector."
Can anyone describe to me what an 'institution sector' is or includes?

From Pg 10 (Only paragraph in the economic impacts of broad reform section):



"Table 11 shows the static and dynamic results of adopting one of the broad-based alternatives
shown above. In the long run GDP would be nearly $2 trillion larger than the 2008 baseline or
nearly 15% higher. The private business capital stock would be more than one-third higher.
Hours worked would be 4.4% higher translating into 6 million more jobs. Not shown is that
wage rates will be 10% higher. Total federal receipts would be nearly 15% higher. This means
that rates could be reduced by another 4 percentage points while maintaining a constant level of
federal revenues."


I should note that table 11 includes such gems as 'current surplus of government enterprises = -4'... WTF? Oh, and they don't describe anywhere how they come up with the above figures. This is seriously the only paragraph on the economic impacts, and may only be there because the other analysis seems to suggest that Cain needs to have a 13-13-13 plan instead of the much more catchy 9-9-9.

There are far more problems I have than this, but most just involve being totally confused by the general point they are trying to make. Please read it and see if it makes sense to you!!

Good for you in bringing these questions forward. :)

[Carole]

Great job TexMac. :D I've been following this thread and all the links. Should be interesting to see if any new questions arise in interviews with Mr. Cain. :rolleyes: :D

Think I'll have and apple....or orange now. :D

[KevinR]

That old article is apples, he's promoting oranges! Totally different!

[Aratus]

TexMac is famous!

[anaconda]

Umm... I can read the words, but I can't understand why they need to reverse this? Is it just to get the answers they want, or is there some logical reason for this that I'm missing?



Home sales are not included in GDP unless they are brand new homes, because it does not represent any production in the current period. Just like a used car sale isn't GDP. Why "commerce (whomever that is)" "reclassifies" this in the first place is unclear.

[european]

I'm not a fan of Cain's 999 plan, but I was curious after the last debate to see his 'independent analysis' that went against the Tax Policy Center's analysis.
<SNIP> ... WTF? <SNIP>

There are far more problems I have than this, but most just involve being totally confused by the general point they are trying to make. Please read it and see if it makes sense to you!!

+1 rep :D

[european]

How bizarre is this? Here's the same paper from 1996:

http://www.ipi.org/ipi/IPIPublications.nsf/eb6b58c80993aa18862567da00686d4c/f14c7240929a433a862567ea002277e8?OpenDocument

Did they just copy it?

+1 rep :D

[V3n]

Does a plan that was written 15 years ago still pass muster in 2011? Or with all the new regulations and tax laws change the conclusions they came to 15 years ago?

And it sounds like Cain lied about outside analysis, from what I can tell the only analysis was done by the paper's own author.

[bb_dg]

We better tell the MSM, hopefully they won't pretend they don't know about it.

[european]

Does a plan that was written 15 years ago still pass muster in 2011? Or with all the new regulations and tax laws change the conclusions they came to 15 years ago?

And it sounds like Cain lied about outside analysis, from what I can tell the only analysis was done by the paper's own author.

I'm analysing it and also making a comparison between the old and the new. Once I have finished the comparison, I'll post it in this thread. Makes it easier for others to see the parts that haven't changed and those that are different.

[RDM]

I set up a new poll on SodaHead to give this more publicity and make TexMac a little more famous.:)

If you would like to take the poll, please do and don't forget to rate and share. Thanks.

Here's the link: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/did-herman-cain-borrow-his-9-9-9-plan-analysis-from-a-96-report-you-decide/question-2238737/

[european]

more fun stuff:

In 1996 the IPI
The original report form 1996 is made under the flag of IPI
http://www.ipi.org/ipi/IPIPublications.nsf/eb6b58c80993aa18862567da00686d4c/f14c7240929a433a862567ea002277e8?OpenDocument

And IPI states: "IPI is studiously non-partisan"
http://www.ipi.org/IPI/IPIHome.nsf?OpenDatabase (Homepage)

IPI also states: "The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy "think tank""
http://www.ipi.org/IPI/IPIHome.nsf?OpenDatabase (About IPI page)

Now one of their (former?) empoyees takes his report that is published under the flag of IPI and makes it the 999 / 9999/ 909 / 1996 report for Cain and probably earns money doing so. That is not really non-profit, but for-profit, and its also not non-partisan, but partisan. That doesnt make IPI look good to me. Because I can say I am non-profit and non-partisan this year when I get my money from IPI. And the year after, I take with me my work I made while being paid by IPI and go sell it to Cain which is both for profit and partisan!

Also in the 1996 / 909 / 999 /9999 report on page 22 it starts with the following statement: "The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization"..."IPI neither solicits nor accepts contributions form any government agency". But its (former?) employees do accept contributions from a man who wants to be president.

I wonder who has the legal copyrights on this one. It could well be that it is IPI and not mr Robbins.

The website of the IPI says it clear:
Entire contents copyright by the Institute for Policy Innovation. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden.

and:
Documents available at this site remain the property of the Institute for Policy Innovation.

and this one made me laugh:
For those who wish to feature our work in their medium: IPI strongly suggests that you put a LINK to our publication on your website, rather than copying an IPI publication and posting it on your website.
Can you imagine on the Cain website: "wanna see 'my' 999 plan? then please click this link to the website of IPI" :D

edit:
To find the 999 plan with all(?) exact matches from the IPI report highlighted. Visit this site: http://pdfcast.org/pdf/my-999-plan-aka-report-135

[TexMac]

IPI posted in the comments to the Politico piece that the Robbins held rights to the paper and all was kosher. The guy said it would've been nice if they'd credited IPI but they weren't obligated to do so.

[european]

IPI posted in the comments to the Politico piece that the Robbins held rights to the paper and all was kosher. The guy said it would've been nice if they'd credited IPI but they weren't obligated to do so.

ah ic :)

[jene277]

I can finally give out +rep, so TexMac, you get my first one!!! You did an awesome job and I wanted to come back here and let you know!! I'm so proud to be on a forum with like minded people who love Ron and liberty so much!

[TexMac]

Aw, thanks! Welcome to the forum!

[RDM]

It's a shame that this never got wide spread media attention.