An Offer They Can't Refuse

"The plan itself is a variation on the 'Fair Tax' concept, which would replace existing payroll and income taxes with a flat national consumption tax. This hardy perennial of conservative tax schemes, which experts, even on the right, tend to deride as impractical and impossibly regressive, remains popular with the conservative rank-and-file. Cain has long been a Fair Tax fan, and frankly describes 9-9-9 as a way station to ultimate establishment of a Fair Tax.
"Specifically, 9-9-9 would replace the current federal income, estate, and payroll taxes with a 9 percent corporate tax, a flat 9 percent income tax, and a 9 percent national sales tax. So it would simultaneously achieve a number of conservative goals in tax policy: abolition of the 'death tax;' elimination of progressive income tax rates; and a general shift from taxes on income to taxes on consumption."

Ed Kilgore in The New Republic discusses the rising popularity of Herman Cain among conservative Republicans.