Herman Cain is unfit to govern: flat taxes are for idiots

The GOP's big talking point is that they want to 'broaden the base', so that more people pay taxes. It really rankles them that some percentage (I think it's about 47% but I forget the exact figure) of the people here in the US pay no income tax at all. What they always fail to mention is that these people don't have any fucking money. Yeah I put the f-bomb in there because I wanted to get your attention. Few things irritate me more than rich people suggesting that poor people should bear more of a burden.

Which brings us to Herman Cain and his 9-9-9 tax plan, which is epic stupid for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the 9% flat tax. Flat taxes are not very equitable when there is a wide distribution of income. They don't take the ability to pay into account, for starters. If Cain's tax plan were implemented, the tax rates for everyone except the top 20% would go up. This is the definition of broadening the base.

The really interesting thing is how much money the super rich will save. That is well illustrated by the attached graph. As you can see, the top one tenth of one percent (the richest of the rich) get quite a nice break. So that they can buy a fourth Ferrari or whatever.

Krugman has some information here: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/tpc-does-herman-cain/

I know you don't love economics as much as I do, but still: this is absurd.