Las Vegas Debate: Up Cain, down with third party taxation, and watch the media

View 697 Wednesday, October 19, 2011

If you rely on the Washington Post or other establishment media reports, Newt Gingrich wasn’t even in Las Vegas at the debate last night; when in fact he was, as usual, the clear winner and best performer. He didn’t make any mistakes, and his critique of host Anderson Cooper for encouraging bickering rather than steering the debate to substantive issues was right on target. But if you look at the Washington Post score card, Newt wasn’t even there.

Newt was the only one on the platform who took Cain’s 9-9-9 plan seriously. He pointed out that the plan as so far presented isn’t complete: there are details that need to be worked out. The important point is that the tax system is all wrong from bottom to top. It needs fixing. I doubt seriously that anything as simple and catch-phrasey as 9-9-9 will do it. To begin with, a federal excise tax on food products that have not crossed state lines would have horrified every delegate to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, and had the voters understood that ratifying the Constitution would allow that, we’d still be under the Articles of Confederation. The Whiskey Tax was inferred from the Constitution. It was instituted at the behest of Hamilton as a way to repay the national debt. The notion that a farmer could not make whiskey from his own corn without paying a tax designed to bail out the banks who had loaned money to finance the Revolution brought about armed rebellion that required President George Washington to take to the field to suppress it; had the tax fallen on eggs and milk and beef the rebellion would have been a lot larger.

Jefferson repealed the Whiskey Tax. It was later reinstated, but “the revenoors” have never been very popular. See films of the Waco Massacre with BATF agents firing unaimed automatic weapons in the general direction of a compound containing not only women and children but four of their own agents as an example of their courage and professionalism. (Sorry: it’s the Southern boy in me; I was raised to be contemptuous of the revenoors.)

Cain is now tied with Romney as Number One.

Cain came off well enough: he did try to debate real issues and he didn’t interrupt the other candidates. He has good manners, a strong personality, and looked Presidential. He’s clearly not very well versed in foreign policy, but neither is the present occupant of the White House. Foreign policy is important, but the most important part of it is having the right principles; after that it’s a matter of choosing the right team to conduct it. Reagan wasn’t a foreign policy wonk and had no experience in the matter. He did know that Nixon’s détente wasn’t the right strategy for the Cold War.  George H. W. Bush had been the Director of Central Intelligence and had lots of experience. Bill Clinton wasn’t a foreign policy expert, and proved it by choosing Allbright; one may disagree with some of Hillary Clinton’s policy moves, but she has done a more than creditable job as Secretary of State working for a clueless President. The Republic needs a principled President, not a policy wonk.

Third Party Taxes

As to 9-9-9, Cain is both principled and intelligent; if a plan won’t work he’s capable of adjusting it without sacrificing its underlying purpose. The underlying purpose of changing the tax code is to make it simple and certain. The purpose of including some kind of excise tax is to make certain that everyone in the nation has a stake in keeping federal taxes reasonable: at the moment taxes are a third party matter for a very large segment of the population, who thus have an interest in spending but will face no personal consequences from expanding entitlements: a sure formula for disaster. Cain understands that. Unless everyone pays something – unless taxes hurt all voters – there’s no curb on spending. Reagan understood that and tried to eliminate withholding from the Income Tax: come tax time you would have to write a check. It wouldn’t be invisibly taken out of your wages. That didn’t fly and for the simple reason that the cost in revenue would be enormous. Having a quarter of the state’s inhabitants in debt to the state for unpaid income taxes would perhaps be philosophically beneficial but it would also be a nightmare. But the principle is that those who vote for taxes must pay some is a vital one for a Republic. There is no limit to taxes you can vote on someone else.

Cain is principled and intelligent, and his fixation on 9-9-9 is in fact indicative of his recognition of the problem: taxes can’t be controlled unless everyone is paying some. Progressive taxes generate complexities. He doesn’t like complexities. Even so, I wouldn’t be astonished if 9-9-9 didn’t end up as a 9% tax but with serious exemptions for food and certain other necessities, and several income tax brackets ranging from a minimum perhaps below 9% and a maximum of, say, 27%. Or something of that sort. The important principle is that there has to be a general incentive to cut spending, not raise taxes. Entitlements have to be paid for. By everyone.

So far as I am concerned, the winner was probably Obama as the top GOP Candidates bashed each other rather than Obama’s “Jobs” plan. Perry demonstrated that he would be disqualified in a high school debate: his debate strategy is to keep the other guy from speaking by using up all his time. His pounding on Romney “for hiring illegal aliens” was not an optimum performance. Romney hired a legal contractor as a gardener. When it turned out that the contractor employed one or more illegals, the contractor was replaced. It turned out the next contractor employed someone with fraudulent documents. When that was discovered the worker was fired. Hardly a major factor in determining who ought to be President of the United States, and certainly not so important that Perry should be so vigorous in making it known. On the positive side, Perry understands that states are not the federal government, and states have powers the feds don’t have. It is important that we have a President who knows this.

Michelle Bachman came off well, looking Presidential at times. Santorum held his own, but succumbed to Anderson Cooper’s predictable seductive call to bicker rather than speak to real issues. Newt correctly took Cooper to task on this. Huntsman tended to be lost in the pack; I could wish he had spent more time expanding his own views. Like this.

And as usual Newt was clearly the smartest man in the room. He was also focused on the goal: getting rid of Mr. Obama.

Romney

Romney started in the lead, and stayed there: he showed a certain degree of calm under fire, and resisted to temptation to retaliate. He can take being bullied: important for someone who may have to stand up to Putin and those whom the Mideast ferment will allow to bubble up to power. He can be decisive, and he showed that he fully understands that the Romney Care Package was designed to take advantage of conditions unique to Massachusetts. It wouldn’t work for the United States as a whole – indeed it wouldn’t be constitutional for the federal government.

It is interesting to note that the mainstream media is showing more and more sympathy and concern for Romney. He is clearly their favorite among the Republicans, and indeed, as Mr. Obama’s approval rate plummet, hovering now below the magic 43%, I look for some of the media to abandon him for someone – anyone – of the traditional ruling class who can win. That, they think, may be Romney.

It’s not that Romney is a traditional Country Club Republican desperate for the approval of the media, someone who can be expected to show “unexpected growth” in office. (“Growth” to the media means becoming more sympathetic to liberal causes.) He’s not that. Romney is a rather odd duck who holds some very conservative views – but who has also managed to be elected as Governor of Massachusetts, and to have governed that unruly state without being pounded into jelly. It’s not that the media like Romney; it’s that he’s about the only place they can go given the Republican field and the dismal record of the present administration. We may look to see more pro-Romney news coupled with increasingly frantic attacks on all the others. Cain, in particular, horrifies them.

I note Sarah Palin’s analysis of the debate.

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