Cain Consultant: 9-9-9 Won’t Work

Herman Cain might be rising to the top, but one of his paid political consultants said Wednesday that the much-touted 9-9-9 plan is more of a theory and not a viable one for the current economy. “The problem with big-bang changes like that, the flat tax or the fair tax, is that they are so alien to the current system that it would be a great big shock,” said Gary Robbins, an economist who conducted a 10-page analysis of the plan in September for Cain’s campaign. Though Robbins says the plan—which calls for a 9 percent federal income tax, a 9 percent national sales tax and a 9 percent corporate tax—has “nothing wrong with it,” but he concluded that “it just wouldn’t be the one I picked.”