Herman Cain’s been fairing pretty well in the polls- And Rick Perry- eh, not so hot.  
But in an effort to climb back, Perry challenged the Godfather’s 9-9-9 plan with a Flat Tax plan of his own.
A reporter for ABC illustrates...

“Perry’s plan- a flat tax, allowing anyone, regardless of income to pay 1 tax rate of 20 percent, your first 12,500 dollars in income would be exempt, mortgage interest and charitable contributions would still be deductible.but only for households under 500,000 dollars, other tax break and loopholes would be eliminated.”

And if you don’t want to change, you don’t have to- Perry’s plan would give people the option to stay with the current system.  Sound simple enough? CBS says that’s not the case.

“He said, if you like the old, complicated one, you can keep that too.  So, this means everyone is going to have to do their taxes both ways, the flat tax, the more complicated one we already have, so we’re really not getting rid of any complication and for some of us, 3 tax ways because you also have to check to see if you fall under the AMT.”

Perry says his plan’s standard $12,500 deduction would give middle and lower class families the chance to move up. CNN takes a dig at what that really means...

“...if you have a family of 2 parents with 1 child, they would quickly get over 36,000 dollars of their income tax free because of this standard deduction, but whether or not lower or middle class people would get ahead in this system is not entirely clear.”

And in an interview with FOX News Republican strategist Dee Dee Benkie says the current system is way too complicated and Perry’s plan is an improvement.

Benkie: “Nobody likes the tax code, nobody understands it, it’s difficult, the people who are able to take advantage of this are corporations, those that have the money to hire high paying attorneys that get them out of taxes, and that’s not right.”
Reporter: “What about Perry’s plan?”
Benkie: “Well I gotta tell you, he needs to pull a Phoenix, he needs to come out of the ashes because things have not gone good for him at all, but the plan looks good, solid.”


CNBC compares Perry’s Flat Tax plan with Herman Cain’s signature -- 999.

“Herman Cain also has high tax cuts at the top, but he raises taxes in the middle of the spectrum and the bottom of the spectrum. He’s tried to repair that lately, but that’s the charge that Herman Cain is battling. Rick Perry fights that by saying that everybody is going to get a tax cut or at least be held harmless under the current system.”

So, will Perry’s plan provide the boost he needs to pass Herman Cain in the polls?

An analyst on Bloomberg says -- though Cain’s plan has its problems -- he believes it’s still less complicated than Perry’s Flat Tax.

“I’m not sure that when they get on the stage together that 999 wont be a little bit easier to understand than rick Perry’s flat tax, over the long run I don’t think its going to wear very well, but over the long run rick Perrys got to get there, he has dropped precipitously in the polls.”