We Interrupt This Horrorfest To Bring You The Following

Or quite frankly, you never know what you might find while digging through the Internet. In the process of trying to properly cover tax plans drawn up by the many GOP nominees, I stumble onto this little fun tidbit that I have to be certain others must know about, too. That Herman Cain stole, borrowed, whatever have you, his 9-9-9 tax plan from a video game. That's right, a video game. I'm not making this up.

Here's the link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048969/Did-Herman-Cain-999-tax-plan-SimCity-video-game.html

Really you've got to be kidding me. This is supposed to be the potential nominee for the GOP in November 2012, and he's taken his main bread and butter tax plan from Sim City 4. From a sequel, I might add. Now granted these days originality is practically dead, and everything has been done before, but this is ridiculous. Never mind the recent stories about Cain being accused of harassment, which to their credit The Daily Show managed to make them funny despite them being really creepy and alarming, the fact that his tax plan is even more of a shame than previously thought is eye opening. This is even more important because the election will, despite any attempts by either the GOP or President Obama and the Democrats, come down to economic issues. Who has the best tax plan, which will help lower the deficit and cut spending?

Never mind that Cain's plan will hurt him dramatically in New Hampshire, one of the states that does not have a sales tax. Not to mention Alaska, which is able to use profits from taxes on oil to also avoid having a sales tax. I would laugh about the 9-9-9 plan, but since Cain has a shot at actually winning Iowa and is running high in the polls, taking a good hard look at something that could be a complete disaster if enacted is absolutely crucial. It’s bad enough that Rick Perry is floating the dead horse issue of a flat tax, too.

Although really our glorious leader, President Obama, has yet to even tackle tax reform. Sure he's cut taxes and let the Bush tax cuts for the rich continue onward, but it’s clear that he's either saving the need to reform the tax system for later, or maybe not at all. This country does need to have a serious discussion about how to better improve a system that actively requires to so many people to hire someone else to actually do their taxes. That's outrageous, and sadly not surprising; at the same time though, what they do not need is a plan taken from a game where you can build your own magical city. Fantasy land shouldn't be the basis for actual policy.