Critics, especially those who can do math, think Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” tax plan is just a catchy slogan. Jon Huntsman thinks it’s the price of pizza. Nonsense. The 9-9-9 plan is just a game. A computer game. Sim City 4, to be precise.
As reporter Amanda Terkel first realized, when players participating in the city simulation begin planning taxes for their mock municipality, the game setup starts commercial, industrial, and residential taxes at 9% rates, remarkably similar to Mr. Cain’s. Gamers use the 9% defaults to figure out rates that will actually work because, even in cyberspace, “9-9-9” doesn’t cut it.
Mr. Cain denies he cribbed his tax plan from a game, but the widely-held assumption has had real-world repercussions. In honor of Herman Cain’s tax plan, all Sim City games are selling for $9.99. See? Herman Cain is saving you money and he’s not even elected yet.
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Top image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Tags: 9-9-9, 999, Cain, computer games, conservatives, EA, electronic arts, games, GOP, Herman Cain, Republicans, Sim City, Sim city 4, SimCity4, tax plan, tax policy, taxes
NotionsCapital 
October 18, 2011 at 7:37 am
Update:
If Cain campaign strategy is swiped from video games, maybe the best way to understand it is as game strategy. Gamer blogger Stephen Johnson even thinks Mr. Cain is vying for virtual world gamer votes. “Cain worked for Coca-Cola, Burger King and Godfather’s pizza,” he notes, “all three of which are staples of the gamer diet.”
“In all seriousness, in politics, there’s something called a ‘dog whistle,’ it’s a way of communicating solidarity with certain groups, without other groups being aware of it. George Bush often employed language in speeches that was meaningful to religious people. Barack Obama’s speeches and gestures often seem to contain subtle nods to the hip-hop community. Cain may actually be employing dog-whistles aimed at gamers. …. There are a lot of gamers out there, and your vote counts as much as anyone’s.”
To attract old school gamers, Herman Cain even quoted a song from a movie based on the Pokémon video game.