re: #7 allegro

If he thinks the exchange with David Gregory on taxes will fool his constituents, he must think they’re incredibly dumb:

Mr. Cain also dismissed a Wall Street Journal editorial critique that “a 9% rate when combined with state and local levies would mean a tax on goods of 17% or more in many places.”

“Don’t combine it with state taxes,” he said. “This doesn’t address state taxes. If you combine it together, yes, you would get that number. This is a replacement structure. These are replacement taxes, they’re not on top of anything.”

Mr. Gregory asked then him, “Are you saying they’re going to be repealed?”

Mr. Cain replied: “With the current structure, you have state taxes, right? So with this new structure, you’re still going to have state taxes. That is muddying the water.”

So, yes, the WSJ criticism was correct, but to mention it would be muddying the water.