Herman Cain, the pizza baron who has risen to the top of the Republican Party’s half-hour comedy hour of a preliminary presidential campaign, is getting a lot of truck from pundits for his catchy sounding “9-9-9” tax plan. It’s basically a flat 9 percent levy on corporate income, personal income, and sales. That sounds familiar, say SimCity fans.
That’s because 9 percent is the default levy for commercial, industrial and and residential taxes in 2004’s SimCity 4
When SimCity‘s core said “Hey, that sounds familiar,” the Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel went digging for answers. The provenance of Cain’s proposal is unknown; it’s said to come from Rich Lowrie, an economic advisor to Cain. He didn’t comment, and his receptionist said he’s not much of a gamer.
Undaunted, the HuffPo went to Maxis, the creator of SimCity, to get a comment. Painstakingly nonpartisan, the studio said that while neither they (nor parent Electronic Arts) make any endorsements, “it’s interesting to see GOP candidate Herman Cain propose a simplified tax system like one we designed for the video game SimCity 4.”
Republican economic advisors have discredited Cain’s plan as nice-sounding campaign boilerplate that’s actually a formula for raising taxes on the poor, cutting them for the rich, and doing zilch for economic growth. Wrote the Times, “When the freshest and most-talked-about idea is Herman Cain’s ridiculous ‘9-9-9’ tax plan, it is clear that the economy they were debating is not the one Americans are forced to live in.”
No, it rather sounds like a simulation where the consequences last only until the computer is powered down.
(Image of Herman Cain | David Goldman/AP)
Herman Cain 999 Plan: Did It Come From SimCity? [Huffington Post, h/t Adrian C.]
