Businessman Herman Cain said that it was a "calamity" for people to have no dreams and that peoples' dreams were being stifled by what he called "Too much legislation, too much regulation, too much taxation." Cain, who is the former chairman of Godfather's Pizza, is now running for President. He spoke at the Americans for Prosperity Presidential Forum in New Hampshire recently.
He said that in order to restore the dream, what was needed was "jobs, jobs, and more jobs." He said that would be accomplished by massive tax cuts, which he said was a matter of giving money back to the American people. He would start by lowering the corporate tax from 35% to 25% and lower personal income taxes, which he said would lead to economic growth. He said he would eliminate the Capital Gains Tax and lower payroll taxes by 6.2% per year.
Addressing arguments that it would lead to less revenues, Mr. Cain said that his tax cuts would "pay for themselves" and that it was simply a matter of common sense to give workers a 6.2% raise through lower taxes. He said that one of the problems that this country had was uncertainty, making people more reluctant to invest in the US. Consequently, he said that he wanted to make his tax cuts permanent, unlike the Bush Tax Cuts passed in the early 00's. This sort of certainty, he said, would make people more likely to invest in the country.
The challenge, of course, would be in the very nature of the American political system -- even if Herman Cain were to take office and he got a Congress who was willing to do what he wanted, the nature of the system is that other people will come and want to do things different. The very nature of democracy is that any changes made can be very impermanent. So the challenge for Cain would be to continually sell his plan to the American people and get other people to do so well after he has left office.
Cain said that he wanted to get the government out of what he called the business of "picking winners and losers" and that he wanted to get rid of Obama's Healthcare Bill. Once his tax cuts were in place, Cain said that he wanted to "cut, cut, cut" spending, including a 10% across the board cut. He would replace what he called "unfunded mandates" with block grants to states and find programs that he says are "duplicative" or that didn't work and get rid of them. Regarding Social Security, he said he wanted to restructure it into personal savings accounts similar to what he said Chile did 30 years ago.
Expressing his support for the Tea Party Movement, he said that it was a "sleeping giant that has awakened" and that his goal would be to alter and abolish the government as we know it today.
Cain closed with a story about his grandfather, who he said sold potatoes for a living and who would always drive his wagon on the roughest parts of the road in order to get the big potatoes on top and the smallest potatoes on the bottom. He said that he wanted his administration to be similar, to let the big potatoes get on top and the small potatoes on the bottom.
Asked a question from one of the moderators about the Balanced Budget Amendment, he said that he supported it and said that he didn't want to see the US Congress spend more than it takes in. In response to another question, he said that he wanted to get rid of government subsidies for big business, saying that in his experience, businesses would trade less subsidies for fewer regulations in a heartbeat, which he said were costing businesses money.
Finally, he said that he would appoint "regulatory reduction commissions" to reduce the size and scope of government and drew the loudest cheers when he said that he would put a commission consisting of people who he said was "abused" by the EPA to reduce that agency's size and scope.