Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain has been getting lots of attention for his bumper-sticker-sized economic policy, the All Meat Combo Original Jumbo“9-9-9″ tax plan. Easy to remember; easy to misunderstand the burden it would place on working people and the poor if the government was wacky enough to implement it.
Here’s where those “9s” in the slogan come from. Throw out the unwieldy U.S. tax code, then replace it with a 9% tax on corporate profits, 9% on personal income, and a 9% tax on consumption.
What’s a “consumption tax?” A 9% federal sales tax or VAT on top of your local sales tax. If you live hand-to-mouth, you would pay 9% on 100% of your income as you earn it, then another 9% on what’s left of those dollars as you spend them to cover your family’s expenses. Result: Americans who earn the least would pay the most in taxes.
Republican presidential candidates debated theology with right-wing fundamentalists this weekend in Washington. The Values Voters Summit, produced by the Family Research Council, staged a “Straw Poll” beauty contest, and lovely and talented Congressman Ron Paul won the tiara.
” … to say that the Values Voters Summit organizers are skeptical of Paul’s win is an understatement. Tony Perkins [President of the Family Research Council] twice noted that 600 tickets were bought this morning, and that a great many people left after Paul’s speech. The conference sold 3406 registrations, well over their 2007 record of around 2700. If half of those 600 were Paul ringers [aka Paulbots -ml] and we take them out of the equation, then Cain would have finished first, 27/26 with Santorum at 19%. If 80% of today’s registrants were Paul ringers and are removed, Cain would have had 32% of the vote, followed by Santorum at 23% and Perry in third place with 12%.” [Notes and links added]
On October 10, 2011, the Federal Office of Management and Budget observes the invasion of the Americas by Christophorus Columbus (aka Christoffa Corombo, Cristoforo Colombo, Cristóvão Colombo, Christovam Colom, and Cristóbal Colón), a Genoese private contractor working for the government of Castille. Federal employees have Monday off, even at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
To celebrate at home, discover America’s food with a Decolonizing Diet dinner party. Serve only pre-contact foods: corn, beans, squash, game meats, fruit, fish, peppers and more — but no wheat, sugar, pork, beef, dairy, processed foods, and so on. Dr. Martin Reinhardt at Northern Michigan University and a crew of twenty-five will be chowing down on indigenous grub for a year. Next month, like-minded folks elsewhere will try eating that way for a week. Dr. Devon Mihesuah (University of Kansas) has some suggested recipes here.
Image (“First Invasion of The Americas by Christopher Columbus, after Dioscoro Teofilo de la Puebla Tolin”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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The Google search engine has been available in China since 2006, but the firm complied with government censorship restrictions (‘The Great Firewall of China“) until 2010. Disclosure of this fact resulted in Congressional hearings and a Google redirect from China to its Hong Kong site. The conflict was uneasily resolved later after the government realized that 70% of the country’s Web surfers use China’s homegrown search engine, Baidu.
Sarah Palin has always been more of a celebrity than an actual public figure, a creation of marketing image-makers. Now that she’s out of the presidential race, she’s become a full-time fictional character in the novel It’s Classified, written by former Palin media advisor Nicolle Wallace.
