thedailywhat:

SimTax of the Day: Was Pokémon-quoting GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain’s beloved 9-9-9 tax plan based on the in-game tax model designed by Maxis for 2003’s SimCity 4?

The sim-ilarities are uncanny: Cain’s tax system overhaul proposes a 9% corporate income tax rate, 9% personal income tax rate, and a 9% national sales tax; SimCity 4’s default tax menu was set at 9% for industrial taxes, 9% for residential taxes, and 9% for commercial taxes.

“We encourage politicians to continue to look to innovative games like SimCity for inspiration for social and economic change,” said Maxis senior producer Kip Katsarelis. “While we at Maxis and Electronic Arts do not endorse any political candidates or their platforms, it’s interesting to see GOP candidate Herman Cain propose a simplified tax system like one we designed for the video game SimCity 4.”

Of course, while the two tax plans do resemble each other in some things, they are rather disparate in others.

While one is a reckless, dishonest, Fair Tax backdoor engineered by an economist without an economics degree that would cripple the working and middle classes and make the rich significantly richer, the other one is a video game menu.

I’ll let you guess which is which.

[huffpo / swampland / factcheck / fact-checker.]