Herman Cain tweaks 9-9-9 tax plan

GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain has drawn fire for his 9-9-9 economic plan.

GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain tweaked his 9-9-9 tax plan, eliminating the tax burden on people living in poverty and creating "opportunity zones" to boost economically depressed areas.

Cain's changes to the plan come amid growing criticism that the proposal -- calling for a 9% income tax, 9% national sales tax and 9% corporate tax rate -- would raise taxes on low- and middle-income people while helping the wealthy.

The former Godfather's Pizza CEO proposed people living at or below the poverty line would pay no income taxes. He touted his plan for opportunity zones in front of a vacant train depot in Detroit.

Cain said his plan for those living at or below poverty level is now "9-0-9."

"Say amen, y'all," Cain said. "In other words if you are at or below the poverty level based on family size, then you don't pay that middle 9 tax on your income. This is how we help the poor."

Cain's changes to the 9-9-9 plan include exemptions from zoning and building codes in areas that need economic boosts and new tax brackets for different income levels. He also says some minimum wage laws could be waived.

Independent analysts at the Tax Foundation and Urban Institute have said Cain's original 9-9-9 plan is regressive and creates a larger tax burden for those at lower income levels.

Cain has surged to the top of national polls and is essentially tied with Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination. His GOP rivals assailed the plan earlier this week during the presidential debate in Las Vegas.

Herman Cain's Impressive Resume

Herman Cain signs "9-9-9" hands symbolizing his proposed tax overhaul during a book signing last week in The Villages, Fla

Herman Cain is looking better and better everyday. I firmly believe that he would have the best chance to beat Obama and get the Black vote. In the debates, he is probably the only one who has continually zeroed in on the issues rather than continually attack other Republican candidates. This says much for this man.

Herman Cain is running for president. He’s not a career politician (in fact he has never held political office). He’s known as a pizza guy, but there’s a lot more to him. He’s also a computer guy, a banker guy, and a rocket scientist guy.

Here’s his bio:

1. Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics.
2. Master’s degree in Computer Science.
3. Mathematician for the Navy, where he worked on missile ballistics (making him a rocket scientist).
4. Computer systems analyst for Coca-Cola.
5. VP of Corporate Data Systems and Services for Pillsbury (this is the top of the ladder in the computer world, being in charge of information systems for a major corporation).

All achieved before reaching the age of 35. Since he reached the top of the information systems world, he changed careers!

1. Business Manager. Took charge of Pillsbury’s 400 Burger King restaurants in the Philadelphia area, which were the company’s poorest performers in the country. Spent the first nine months learning the business from the ground up, cooking hamburger and yes, cleaning toilets. After three years he had turned them into the company’s best performers.
2. Godfather’s Pizza CEO. Was asked by Pillsbury to take charge of their Godfather’s Pizza chain (which was on the verge of bankruptcy). He made it profitable in 14 months.
3. In 1988 he led a buyout of the Godfather’s Pizza chain from Pillsbury. He was now the owner of a restaurant chain. Again he reached the top of the ladder of another industry.
4. He was also chairman of the National Restaurant Association during this time. This is a group that interacts with government on behalf of the restaurant industry, and it gave him political experience from the non-politician side.

Having reached the top of a second industry, he changed careers again!

1. Adviser to the Federal Reserve System. Herman Cain went to work for the Federal Reserve Banking System advising them on how monetary policy changes would affect American businesses.
2. Chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. He worked his way up to the chairmanship of a regional Federal Reserve bank. This is only one step below the chairmanship of the entire Federal Reserve System (the top banking position in the country). This position allowed him to see how monetary policy is made from the inside, and understand the political forces that impact the monetary system.

After reaching the top of the banking industry, he changed careers for a fourth time!

1. Writer and public speaker. He then started to write and speak on leadership. His books include Speak as a Leader, CEO of Self,Leadership is Common Sense, and They Think You’re Stupid.
2. Radio Host. Around 2007—after a remarkable 40 year career—he started hosting a radio show on WSB in Atlanta (the largest talk radio station in the country).

He did all this starting from rock bottom (his father was a chauffeur and his mother was a maid). When you add up his accomplishments in his life—including reaching the top of three unrelated industries: information systems, business management, and banking—Herman Cain may have the most impressive resume of anyone that has run for the presidency in the last half century.

What would Herman Cain's '9-9-9' tax plan really do?

Many find the GOP presidential candidate's proposal appealing in its simplicity – but at least one analyst says it would shift more of the burden from the wealthy to the middle class and poor.

Herman Cain signs "9-9-9" hands symbolizing his proposed tax overhaul during a book signing last week in The Villages, Fla.

Presidential candidate Herman Cain has made a splash with his "9-9-9" tax plan, which drew the focus of much of this week's Republican debate on the strength of its catchy simplicity.

The plan — were it to surmount dead-on-arrival predictions — would amount to a dramatic benefit to wealthy Americans and a greater burden on the poor and middle class, according to one analysis.

But it is proving a hit with voters who say they're fed up with loopholes and tax breaks for corporations, and with many tea party activists who want government out of their affairs. The allure of Cain's plan is similar to that of previous proposals like the flat tax, which appeals to people like John Nolte.

"The tax system, as it is, is so byzantine, so intentionally complicated," said Nolte, a conservative blogger in North Carolina. "Americans understand that the simplest solutions are usually the best solutions."

Cain's plan would scrap the current tax system and levy a flat 9% tax on businesses, income and sales. It would eliminate the capital gains tax and the inheritance tax and require some lower-income people who pay minimal — if any — income taxes to fork over 9%, the same rate that would be paid by the richest Americans, whose incomes are currently taxed at 35%.

"9-9-9 is bold, and the American people want a bold solution, not just what's going to kick the can down … the road," Cain said during the debate.

Though they also advocate tax reform — a popular topic this campaign season — many GOP presidential hopefuls ridicule Cain's plan as another way to levy more taxes on Americans.

During Tuesday's GOP debate, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota warned that a flat sales tax could give Congress another way to take money from taxpayers. Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania accused Cain of "giving Washington a huge new tax burden."

"We need something that's doable, doable, doable," said former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who has put forward a proposal to lower the income tax rate on the top bracket of earners to 25% from 35% and phase out corporate subsidies. "And what I have put forward is a tax program that is doable."

Other candidates have tried to simplify the tax code before, most notably businessman Steve Forbes in two presidential campaigns in 1996 and 2000. His solution — a flat tax on income — ultimately fizzled. No one has been able to achieve extensive tax reform on the national level since President Reagan in 1986.

But some analysts say that current discontent with the economy is making Cain's plan more popular among voters — even if isn't likely to pass.

"The difference between now and 1996 is that we are in horrible economic shape," said K.B. Forbes, a GOP strategist who worked on the Steve Forbes campaign. "Bush at the tail end of his presidency and Obama bailed out Wall Street, and the American people feel that they have gotten the short end of the stick."

Nearly three-fourths of people surveyed in a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll said that the country was headed in the wrong direction, up from about 50% in 2009. In the same poll, 27% of likely Republican voters picked Cain as their top candidate, up from 5% six weeks ago.

"There's more interest in going to a lower, flatter, simpler tax code now than in recent history," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who is nonetheless concerned about Cain's plan because he thinks it could make it easier for the government to raise taxes.

There's an economic argument for simplicity too, said Alan Auerbach, director of the Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at UC Berkeley. Scrapping the current tax system would make it easier for taxpayers to comply with the Internal Revenue Service, and harder for them to avoid paying taxes.

By lowering the tax burden on the wealthy, the plan would encourage more investment and spending, and ultimately boost the economy in the long term, Auerbach said.

Still, Americans might ultimately find that simplicity is misleading, said Edward Kleinbard, a professor of law at USC, who calls the plan "a terrific example of fiscal hocus pocus."

Cain's plan would shift the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor and middle class, according to Kleinbard's analysis. A family of four making $120,000, for example, would pay $800 more in taxes under the plan. Lower-income taxpayers would be even worse off.

"Everyone with income below $120,000 will pay a lot more under the Cain system," Kleinbard said.

Kleinbard, who served as the chief of staff of Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation, said he understood the appeal of simplicity. But Congress has historically used the tax code to give subsidies to struggling industries, and to try to mete out fairness in the economy.

"We could make things simpler, except that when people look at what that means, they don't actually want it," he said. "They like the idea of simplicity; they don't like losing their tax subsidies."

Religion enters GOP race; Cain gains traction

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, speaks at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC

Herman Cain is getting plenty of attention less than three months before the first votes are cast in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination.

In the process, the ex-pizza magnate has highlighted the vulnerabilities of Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, who this weekend were dragged into a public debate over Romney's Mormon faith at an annual gathering of social conservatives here.

The Romney-Perry contretemps came after the Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of a large Baptist church in Dallas, endorsed and introduced Perry, then later told reporters that evangelicals believed the Mormon faith - which Romney and fellow GOP candidate Jon Huntsman practice - was a "cult." Jeffress further predicted that if nominated by the Republicans, Romney could not beat President Barack Obama, because evangelicals would not support the former Massachusetts governor.

Romney was atop a Quinnipiac University poll of Republicans released Wednesday, but Cain had jumped ahead of Perry. Doubts about the Texas governor have increased after mediocre debate performances and because of objections among conservatives to his positions on immigration and his support of mandatory anti-cancer inoculations of children.

All three, along with Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; former Rep. Newt Gingrich; former Sen. Rick Santorum; and Rep. Ron Paul spoke to the annual "Values Voters" conference sponsored by the Family Research Council and other conservative groups.

Cain was greeted with enthusiasm. He joked that "Yes We Cain" and proclaimed himself as a fellow social conservative.

"I believe in life from conception, period, no exceptions," he said to sustained applause. "I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman."

The former CEO of Godfather's Pizza said he was the personification of the American Dream - a black man who grew up during Jim Crow but who could not have similarly succeeded in any other country.

"A reporter asked me . . . well, aren't you angry about how America has treated you?" Cain told a crowd of 3,000 at a D.C. hotel. "I said, 'Sir, you don't get it. I have achieved all of my American dreams and them some because of the great nation of the United States of America. What's there to be angry about?"

Cain finished second, to Paul, in a straw ballot conducted during the conference, far outdistancing both Perry, who finished with 8 percent, and Romney, who got just 4 percent. Paul got 37 percent, Cain 23, and Santorum 17.

Asked what it meant to Perry and Romney, who have alternatively led in national polls among Republicans in general, Family Research Council Chairman Tony Perkins said that "there is still work to do" to attract social conservatives.

But Jeffress's controversial endorsement competed with that headline. He told reporters that he believed Romney was a strong family man, but not a Christian, and therefore would have trouble with evangelical voters. Evangelicals vote heavily in states among the first where ballots for the Republican nomination are cast, including Iowa, South Carolina and Florida.

"There are a lot of Christian voters who don't want to appear bigoted, so what they say to pollsters is not necessarily what they will do in the privacy of the voting booth," Jeffress said. "I frankly agree if Gov. Romney is the nominee Barack Obama will be the new president of the United States."

Romney did not directly refer to the issue when he addressed the group Saturday. But he did praise former Education Secretary Bill Bennett, who referred to Jeffress by name and said: "Do not give voice to bigotry."

Bennett complained that Jeffress "stepped on and obscured the words" of seven Republican presidential candidates who addressed the conference.

"You did Rick Perry no good, sir, in what you had to say," Bennett said.

Perry told reporters campaigning in Iowa after his Friday speech that he did not believe Mormonism was a cult.

Paul, who also received a robust reception, said the Perry-Romney dust-up was a distraction.

"Too much government is the issue of the day, not the definition of a cult," he said after his speech.

In his remarks to the group, Perry tried to draw sharper differences with Romney on abortion.

Touching social conservatives' criticism that Romney only hardened his views against abortion when he began running for president, Perry said: "For some candidates, pro-life is an election-year slogan to follow the prevailing political winds. To me it's about the absolute principle that every human being is entitled to life."

Romney responded by telling the conference that "our values must also encompass the life of an unborn child." He acknowledged that "there are, of course, strong convictions on both sides of the life issue. Yet, it speaks well of our country that almost all Americans recognize that abortion is a problem."

He also said that "the blessings of faith carry the responsibility of civil and respectful debate."

Lawrence O'Donnell's Offensive Interview with Herman Cain

Despite all the hours of Bill O'Reilly that I've watched, the unfortunate experience of hearing Mark Levin at his worst, and listening to Rush Limbaugh for more hours than I can count, I've never been more disgusted by a broadcaster's interview with a presidential candidate than I was Thursday night, when Lawrence O'Donnell repeatedly hectored candidate Herman Cain in a disrespectful way. As a cable news host, he had every right to ask the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza tough questions. Given the opportunity to interview Cain tomorrow, I'd press him about what he means when he says that many black voters are brainwashed into voting for Democrats, confront him about his changing position on the wisdom of assassinating Anwar al-Awlaki, and challenge his factually inaccurate ideological boilerplate about protests against Wall Street banks.

What I'd avoid is the smugness O'Donnell displayed throughout his long conversation with Cain, the focus on creating idiotic gotcha moments rather than drawing out or clarifying Cain's positions -- is there any respectable reason to ask a presidential candidate to respond to a Hank Williams Jr. appearance on Fox & Friends? -- and more than anything else, the several especially objectionable questions O'Donnell posed that were offensive even by the standards of cable news.

Where to begin? It's difficult to choose, but my jaw dropped farthest when O'Donnell demanded, "Mr. Cain, what are you grateful to this nation for? You served in the Navy. They paid for you to go get a graduate degree while you were in the Navy. Are you grateful to the government for doing that? Are you grateful to this government for passing the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act?" In fairness to O'Donnell, Cain said that he was grateful, but I was put off by the bullying inquiry into gratefulness to country, expecting any moment that O'Donnell would start demanding to know why Cain wasn't wearing a flag lapel pin; and when O'Donnell then mentioned the civil rights laws, I thought to myself, Are blacks who grew up in that era and witnessed the epic struggle for equality really supposed to be 'grateful' that the government finally granted the rights that were their due as humans, and that they ought to have had all along?

The exchange was also notable because O'Donnell got his facts wrong. As Cain would politely point out, "Let's get the record straight, I didn't serve in the Navy, I was a civil servant. I started working for the Department of the Navy as a mathematician and ballistics analyst." The tenor of the interview is perhaps best understood by looking at how O'Donnell responded to being corrected.

O'Donnell: I misread your book and its references to the Navy. I thought you served in the Navy. You're now telling me you didn't. Can you explain how you avoided military service during the Vietnam War and during the draft, and why you should be commander in-chief if you did successfully avoid service during the war that came during what would have been your war years? After avoiding the Vietnam War, why should you be commander-in-chief?

Cain: Lawrence, you know, do you stay up nights coming up with the wording of these questions?

O'Donnell: Just thought of that one now when I heard you didn't serve in the Navy or the military during Vietnam. How did you do that?

Cain: You say, "How did I avoid the Vietnam War?" I wasn't trying to avoid the Vietnam War! Here's what happened, Lawrence. I was working in a critical area called exterior ballistics. I worked on something called rocket assisted projectiles for the Department of the Navy. It was my local board in Atlanta, Georgia, that told me, "We would rather have you continue to do that analytical work, to help the Navy, rather than us draft you." Secondly, when they had the lottery, I made myself available. The year that they had the lottery for the draft, they did not draft me because they didn't get to my number. So I think that's a poor choice of words on your part to say that I "avoided" the Vietnam War. I made myself available to my country, and they did not draft me. The rest of the time I was serving my country in a critical role called exterior ballistic analysis. So I am offended with your choice of words in terms of what I was doing during the Vietnam War.

You'd think that would conclude the subject.

Incredibly, O'Donnell followed up by saying, "I am offended on behalf of all the veterans of the Vietnam War who joined, Mr. Cain. The veterans who did not wait to be drafted, like John Kerry, who joined. They didn't sit there and wait to find out what their draft board was going to do. They had the courage to join, and to go, and to fight that war. What prevented you from joining? And what gives you the feeling, after having made that choice, you should be the commander in chief?"

Obviously, this is an absurd standard to apply, and it is difficult to imagine the Vietnam veterans that O'Donnell so opportunistically invokes being upset that a man of their generation didn't enlist after being told by his draft board that his work for the Navy was where he could contribute most.

Coming from O'Donnell on MSNBC, the lecture is especially grating. When Andrew Breitbart released his recent book, I explained at some length how he embodies many of the attitudes and behaviors that he claims to abhor in other people -- his self-serving reasoning is that liberals behave badly, so he is justified in behaving in exactly the same awful ways as a countermeasure. Rush Limbaugh does it too, complaining about race-baiting, and then doing it constantly.

In this interview, O'Donnell goes to absurd lengths to use patriotism and jingoism as cudgels to attack his conservative guest, almost as if he is doing a Stephen Colbert style parody of the tactics he imagines a right-wing blowhard might employ. Does he realize he's becoming what he claims to abhor?

That brings us to the segment of the interview that is causing the most consternation. It concerns a passage from Cain's book. Understand that it is a very strange, surprisingly unpolished book. If it had a ghost writer, he or she failed. Certain passages are offered for reasons impossible to discern. The narrative jumps from one anecdote to another, and sections that would, in a normal book, be emphasized or lead to some larger point are offered sans comment.

The passage at issue is preceded by a story about how Cain and his brother got a BB gun for Christmas, shot their cousin in the butt, and got it taken away. Immediately following that story is this:

One very hot day when he and I were out with Mom, we got very thirsty and started to walk over to a public water fountain. Mom reminded us that we must use the "coloreds" fountain. Being somewhat rambunctious, however, we made sure no one was watching us, and then we drank, first from the forbidden "whites only" fountain, and after that from the "coloreds" fountain. Then we looked at each other and said, "You know what? The 'whites only' water tastes just the same as the 'coloreds' does!"

On a day-to-day basis, because the civil rights movement was a few years in front of me, I was too young to participate when they first started the Freedom Rides, and the sit-ins. So on a day-to-day basis, it didn't have an impact. I just kept going to school, doing what I was supposed to do, and stayed out of trouble--I didn't go downtown and try to participate in sit-ins. But I well remember, as a young teenager, seeing signs printed in large black letters at the fronts of buses: "White seat from front, colored seat from rear." One day when I was thirteen, my friends and I were riding home from school in a half-empty bus--this was at the time when the civil rights movement was just getting off the ground and some police officers were just looking for a reason to shoot a black person who "got out of line." So, counter to our real feelings, we decided to avoid trouble by moving to the back of the bus when the driver told us to. By that time, the sit-ins and the Freedom Rides had kind of broken the ice, even though things hadn't fully changed. So we saw it every day on TV and read about it in the news. Dad always said, "Stay out of trouble," and we did.

The book then moves on to another subject (mathematics!) -- no larger point is made about the civil rights era. I imagine a lot of white people who read that passage shared something like my reaction: Wow, I can't imagine what it was like to live through that era as a black person -- to have kids whose "real feelings" urged them toward civil disobedience, even as you felt they were too young, and urged them against it, wondering if you were doing right, as they wondered too.

I'd be hesitant to judge anyone's reaction to that situation. How did the MSNBC host respond? "Where do you think black people would be sitting on the bus today if Rosa Parks had followed your father's advice?"

Cain replied, still not losing his cool, by pointing out that at the time that the anecdote happened, his father was giving advice to a high school aged boy, not an adult like Rosa Parks, for whose courage he was thankful.

O'Donnell then launched into an attack: "Mr. Cain, you were in fact in college from 1963 to 1967, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, exactly when the most important demonstrations and protests were going on. You could easily as a student at Morehouse between 1963 and 1967 actively participated in the kinds of protests that got African Americans the rights they enjoy today. You watched from that perspective at Moorehouse when you were not participating in those processes. You watched black college students from around the country and white college students from around the country come south AND BE MURDERED, fighting for the rights of African Americans. Do you regret sitting on those sidelines at that time?"

Cain hinted that an illness in his family prevented him from being as involved as he would've liked, which is beside the point.

So there you have it: a histrionic question that it's hard to imagine being asked on MSNBC to anyone other than a black conservative. In a 20 minute interview, O'Donnell tried to bully Cain into 1) acknowledging thanks for the Civil Rights Act, 2) apologizing for his failure to volunteer for Vietnam when he wasn't drafted, and 3) confessing that he did less than white activists during the Civil Rights Movement. If there were ever a segment designed to show liberals the folly of trying to mimic Fox News, this is it. I really dislike that network. And in this interview, O'Donnell was beneath it. Kudos to Cain for keeping impressively composed and responsive during an ordeal where Vietnam veterans and dead civil rights marchers were shamelessly invoked to bait him.

Can Herman Cain keep up the momentum after his Florida straw poll win?

Herman Cain is basking in the Sunday glow of his surprise win Saturday in the Florida straw poll. But he lags in national polls, and his Florida win may draw sharper scrutiny of his positions.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain departs the stage after speaking at the Republican Party of Florida Presidency 5 Convention and Straw Poll at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando Saturday. Cain won the straw poll.


Herman Cain is basking in the Sunday glow of his surprise win Saturday in the Florida straw poll.

But stark morning-after questions remain:

Can he keep up the momentum among his Republican rivals for the 2012 presidential nomination? Will the results of what is essentially a candidate beauty contest make any difference in the national polls, which are a much more accurate gauge of how the rivals are doing compared to each other (and to Barack Obama)? And will it mean sharper scrutiny – and pointed criticism – of his positions and policies in upcoming debates and straw poll maneuvering?

"The takeaway from Florida, that we took away, is that number one, the citizens movement is more powerful than the establishment wants to give me credit for. So yes, they keep treating me like the Rodney Dangerfield of this primary contest," Cain told Fox News Sunday.

"The voters, the people out in the field are saying we want to send a message to Washington, D.C. The establishment is not going to make this call, the people are going to make the call and that's what you saw in the Florida straw poll yesterday," he said.

Most analysts see Saturday’s unscientific Florida poll of 2,657 delegates (party activists who’d paid $175 to participate) as one blip on a long trail of debates and straw polls – and one that mainly was a rebuke of Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Perry, whose three debate performances seem to have gotten progressively worse and some of whose positions have drawn sharp critical response from party conservatives, managed to win just 15 percent of the straw poll tally compared to 37 percent for Cain. The loss was all the more troubling for the Perry camp since the Texas governor and late entry to the race had lobbied hard for delegate votes.

“Perry’s showing in the straw poll was disastrous. He was here, he worked the crowd, and it just proves that the debate performance really undermined his support,” Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who was at the straw poll in Orlando this weekend, told Politico.com “Perry’s gotta retool, reorganize and retrench very quickly.”

Cain’s principal thrust has been on the economy, mainly his “999 Plan” for tax reform starting with a 25 percent limit on personal and business taxes, then moving to a 9 percent flat tax for businesses and individuals, plus a 9 percent national sales tax.

But he’s also made some controversial statements that may come back to haunt him if his campaign continues to succeed and he comes under greater scrutiny.

He’s called Social Security a “scam,” for example. And he’s had to apologize to Muslim Americans for suggesting that communities could ban mosques.

So far, Cain has yet to take off in national polls. The latest Rasmussen poll gives him just 7 percent; the McClatchy-Marist poll has him at 5 percent, as does the CBS News/New York Times poll of Republican primary voters; the Bloomberg News national poll gives him 4 percent; and the CNN/Opinion Research poll puts Cain at 5 percent

Saturday evening’s straw poll in Michigan probably was even less significant than Florida’s. Not surprisingly, Mitt Romney won in his home state with 51 percent of the 681 votes cast. Perry was second with 17 percent, and Cain came in third with 9 percent. More interesting to political junkies may have been the results to a question about the most attractive possibility for the GOP’s vice presidential nominee: 23 percent for Sen. Marco Rubio, followed by 14 percent for Cain. Some analysts think Rubio – an attractive newcomer to the national political scene – is angling for the VP nod.

God Bless America

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain pays tribute to the fallen of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 as he sings, "God Bless America."


Note to readers: The following column by Congressman Don Manzullo initially published in the Northwest Herald on Sept. 16, 2001.

Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, started like an ordinary day. I rode to the Capitol with Congressman Lee Terry and at 9:30 a.m. crossed the 14th Street bridge, a quarter-mile from the Pentagon.

Ten minutes later, the airplane struck the building. As I entered my office, my staff was watching thick smoke pouring from the Pentagon. I sent them home. With no ride myself, I asked my scheduler and legislative assistant, Katy Whitfield from Crystal Lake, to take me home. As we left, we heard rumors of bombs exploding at the State Department, the Senate and on the Mall. We even heard a rumor that the Sears Tower in Chicago suffered the same fate as the World Trade Center in New York.

Members of Congress and staff moved quickly and silently from the office buildings. The sense of shock was so intense that most people, including myself, felt nothing but a sense of disbelief. We heard what we thought was an explosion, but it could have been a sonic boom from a fighter jet passing over the Capitol.

Members of Congress were summoned to return to the Capitol at 7:15 p.m. Speaker [of the House Dennis] Hastert led us in silent prayer on the Capitol steps. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California started us singing “God Bless America.”

On Wednesday, Sept. 12, I went to the Pentagon to thank the firefighters who responded to the tragedy. I spoke with several of them. There must have been a thousand people representing countless emergency and security agencies. There was even a chapel. I talked to two exhausted firemen who were trying to get some rest. “The American people want to thank you,” I said. “Thank you,” they responded. “We’re tired. We just worked 12 straight hours.” The plane struck the building on its side, one wing up, the other down. It tore open a 200-foot-wide hole. The fire burned for more than 24 hours, reaching up to 1,400 degrees. And, yet, right next to the hole in the building stood a computer, a desk and some filing cabinets unscathed by the fire. The acrid smoke, charred building, and response teams made it look like a war zone. It was.

On Thursday, Sept. 13, the shock had not left and I still couldn’t sleep. I saw Congressman Gary Ackerman from New York. I asked him if he knew how many constituents and friends he had lost. He said he didn’t know; tears poured from his eyes. I embraced him as he told me his intern’s 23-year-old brother perished in the World Trade Center. Congresswoman Nydia Velaquez, also from New York, waited 11 agonizing hours before finding her niece, who worked in the building.

We voted Thursday for emergency funding to help the injured and missing, to rebuild the destruction, and to give our military the resources to wipe our planet clean of the cowardly animals who committed these heinous acts. We also voted to urge Americans to fly their flags. As we were being briefed in the House Chamber, a fire alarm sounded to evacuate us from a bomb threat.

I attended a weekly Bible study with several members of Congress. Our leader, Ted Yates, received the following email (in broken English) from Poland, where Ted and his family ministered for several years:

We are shocked and deep touch of this what happend in last Tuesday in States. I want assure you, and all other American friends about our solidarity, and our prayers which we bring to God’s Throne. Poland is plunge in mourning. President proclaimed national mourning for next 3 days. There are thousands of flowers and ever burning fires next to Amercan Embassy in Warsaw. Polish people had hard history but this kind of brutality stoped our breathing. We are with you.

–Yours in Christ, Piotr P. Waclawik.

Today is a new day. Our nation and our people are forever changed. And we are stronger than ever.

My offices have been flooded with calls from northern Illinois residents offering messages of hope and seeking ways to help. Doctors, nurses, firefighters and truckers offered to drive to New York to help the victims and missing. Seniors on fixed incomes offered cash donations. Thousands stood in line for hours to give blood.

I am overwhelmed by the sense of compassion and patriotism that has grasped our country. While our military protects us, our people will inspire us to heal and rebuild the greatest nation in the world.

God Bless America.

• Don Manzullo of Egan was U.S. Representative of Illinois’ 16th Congressional District when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks occurred. He remains Illinois’ 16th District congressman today.