Interview conducted by Republic Report’s Zaid Jilani and Suzanne Merkelson.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this weekend, Republic Report ran into Mark Block, Herman Cain’s campaign manager and cigarette-puffing star of one of the most infamous ads of the 2012 election so far. We asked him about Cain’s signature “9-9-9 plan” to reform and simplify the federal tax code and how it might be stymied by corporate lobbyists looking for breaks and exemptions on behalf of their powerful clientele:

JILANI: Looking at the 9-9-9 plan, I think one of the biggest obstacles to passing it…are big corporate lobbyists. You know, big companies that want their own carve-out, their own loophole, their own exemptions …What sort of message do you have to those corporate lobbyists…who will be fighting this plan?

BLOCK: Get a new job, simple as that. I think you hit something right on the head. 9-9-9 is so simple, across the board, everybody pays their fair share. Probably 52 percent of lobbyists in Washington, D.C. would be out of a job. So perhaps Obama’s unemployment rate would go up a little bit more.

Filed under: Lobbying