After a few caffeine-heavy refills at our corner table, I asked him about President Obama’s new effort to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Cain just about blew a blood vessel–especially when I mentioned the part where Obama says it’s about “math” not “class warfare.”Read the full story here.
“Can I be blunt? That’s a lie,” Cain said, before the sound of his voice began to rise noticeably higher. “You’re not supposed to call the president a liar. Well if you’re not supposed to call the president a liar, he shouldn’t tell a lie. If it’s not class warfare, it’s highway robbery. He wants us to believe it’s not class warfare, oh okay, it’s not class warfare. Pick my pockets, because that’s what he’s doing!”
Cain paused, took a breath and looked at me.“I’m not mad at you, I just get passionate about this stuff,” he said. “I have to tell people because I get so worked up . . . . I’m listening to all this bullshit that he’s talking about, ‘fairness’ and ‘balanced approach’ to get this economy going.”
As anyone who watched the past couple of debates knows by now, Cain has his own plan that he says would steer the country out of its economic downturn. He calls it the “9-9-9 Plan,” and it would replace the current tax code with three flat, nine-percent federal taxes on income, consumption and business.
“With 9-9-9 guess what? How many loopholes?” he said, tapping his fingers on the table like a drumroll. “None. Everybody gets treated the same. What a novel idea.”
As the straw poll and his recent fundraising numbers suggest, Cain’s message is resonating with the conservative movement’s influential base of tea-party activists; for these supporters his status as a non-career politician with an extensive background in the private sector is nearly as strong a draw as his ideas and policy proposals. But despite his recent surge in support, few expect Cain’s momentum to carry him on to victory at the Republican National Convention in 2012.