Herman Cain: Campaign Issues

Where he stands

Herman Cain Photo by: Gage Skidmore Related Links Barack Obama: Campaign Issues Campaign 2012 Closest Presidential Races Presidential Gallery Herman Cain’s campaign website

Healthcare

• Cain thinks Obama's health care plan should be repealed. He wants to replace it with patient-centered, free market reforms.
• He has been speaking out against nationalized healthcare since the Clinton administration introduced it. In 1993, Cain notoriously challenged President Clinton at a town hall meeting when he asked what he should tell his employees when he lays them off due to the expense of government run health care.

Budget/Deficit/Taxes

• Cain would replace the current tax code with his 9-9-9 plan. The 9-9-9 plan removes all payroll taxes, ends almost all deductions as well as special interest favors, ends the estate tax and is divided like this:
  
  
  
   
  1. 9% Business Flat Tax
     
     9% Individual Flat Tax
     
     9% National Sales Tax
  
   
• He believes whole programs should be cut to decrease the budget.
• With his background in business, Cain believes cutting taxes for businesses will stimulate growth.
• Cain wants a direct stimulus which would cut the spending of bureaucracies and special interests.

Immigration

• Cain believes that existing legislation can stop illegal immigration.
• He strongly feels that America can be a country with wide open doors and high fences at the same time.
• He proposed installing a 20-foot electrical fence along the Mexican-U.S. border, but clarified this view point a month later by saying he was kidding when he said it and that "American's got to learn how to take a joke."

Energy/Environment

• Cain wants to expand the country's domestic energy resources by loosening excessive environmental regulations.
• He feels we must allow all forms of energy to be developed in a free market system and that the current administration favors certain industries and products (like ethanol-producing corn) over others.
• Believes that alternative energy sources like solar, wind, nuclear and hydroelectric are part of a long term solution, but private industry must take over these ventures in order for real progress to be made.
• Wants to let the market / demand decide which forms of energy provide fuel for cars and heat for homes.

Foreign Policy

• Cain believes that the U.S. should not preemptively go to war.
• He thinks that the U.S. should not be concerned with foreign conflicts or civil wars because it is not the nation's business.
• Feels the country should focus its resources more on domestic defense and be better prepared for attacks on American soil.
• In September 2011, Cain published an opinion piece on FoxNews.com entitled If You Mess with Israel, You're Messing with the USA, in which he explains that if elected he will stand behind Israel.

Same-sex marriage

• Cain does not support civil unions.
• He supports legislation that would protect the sanctity of marriage as defined between one man and one woman.