To the mysterious ranks of GOP candidate Herman Cain’s economic advisors, the publicly revealed names of which until now consisted of Rich Lowrie, Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, THE IRISH ROVER brings you chairman of the department of history at Sam Houston State University Brian Domitrovic.

Domitrovic received his PhD in history from Harvard University in 2000, since contributing to numerous popular and scholarly publications, including a weekly column at Forbes.com.

His book ECONOCLASTS: THE REBELS WHO SPARKED THE SUPPLY-SIDE REVOLUTION AND RESTORED AMERICAN PROSPERITY has been called the “definitive history of supply-side economics” and “an incredibly timely work that reveals the foundations of America’s prosperity at a time when those very foundations are under attack.”

With vim and vigor, Domitrovic offered THE IRISH ROVER an insider’s perspective on the reception, theory, and predicted timeline of the plan.

What do you make of the plan’s public reception? How would you respond to the charge that the 999 plan is regressive? What is the logic behind requiring corporations to pay taxes, which are ultimately passed along to consumers as a hidden tax? How would you answer the criticism that a 9 percent sales tax provides the federal government another means to confiscate the fruits of citizens’ labor, thus inhibiting the production-driven economics Cain supports?

The public has responded enthusiastically to the plan because of its virtues:

1.      It simplifies the tax code, which costs hundreds of billions in compliance and is the bane of everyone’s existence.

2.      It cuts two huge taxes, on income and business.

3.      It nixes famously dreaded taxes, from capital gains to estates to payroll.

Somebody finally called the IRS’s bluff – this is why the plan is popular.

The way to think about the sales tax is that it replaces the payroll tax. You get an income tax cut, lower prices because of the business tax cut, and a swap-out of the payroll with the sales tax.

Cain’s website contains the following statement: “The natural state of our economy is prosperity.” Could you explain the rationale behind this perspective?

The rationale is that for 200 years, the U.S. economy grew at historic rates; in the nineteenth century, the U.S. grew such that it became the largest economy in the world; in the twentieth such that middle class livelihoods came to tens upon tens of millions.

Upon what economic theories and principles did you draw? Could you elaborate briefly on those listed on Cain’s website? (Production drives the economy, not spending.  Risk taking drives growth.)

The chief principle driving the plan is that the natural condition of the American economy is growth. It is not something that has to be discovered by means of ingenious government intervention.

The plan claims to lift a “$430 billion deadweight” in the form of compliance off the economy. What are the estimated compliance costs of the new plan?

Far less, in that the value of corporate loopholes will be lower, since their benefit is 9 percent as opposed to 35 percent (the current corporate rate).

The plan claims to provide for “immediate expensing of business investments” and to feature “a platform to launch properly structured empowerment zones to renew our inner cities.” How?

Corporate investments have been left as half-taxable by the code for years. It’s a piece of cake to get rid of this: Everything that’s not profit in your accounting statement isn’t taxed.

As for empowerment zones, in a sense the whole country will be one. A classic definition of an empowerment zone is one where there’s no capital gains or payroll tax.

What would the plan’s timescale and practical measures of implementation look like?

9-9-9 would be implemented very quickly. After it booms the economy, a transition can be made to a national sales tax (FAIR tax) to the exclusion of all income and corporate taxes.

What changes or additions to the plan are you currently working on?

Monetary policy!

Is there anything else you would like to add about the plan?

Virtually all periods of prosperity since the creation of the income tax in 1913 have come via tax cuts. We’ll see another here.

With what other changes would you supplement 999 to alleviate the economic crisis?

Stable money.

Professor Domitrovic lives in Texas with his wife and children.