WASHINGTON - October 1, 2011 - If you know one thing about Herman Cain, it’s probably that he used to be the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza.

If you know two things, then you have likely heard of something called “9-9-9”.

That is the Republican businessman’s catchy shorthand for his tax reform plan. It has become the centerpiece of his upstart campaign for president, which got a boost recently when he surprised the political establishment by winning a closely watched Republican straw poll in Florida.

Cain uses the term like a mantra, promoting the plan in his southern drawl and usually following talk of it with a plug for one of his other favorite programs, the “Chilean model” that he would substitute for Social Security.

The 9-9-9 term has become so familiar to political observers that people sometimes ask him about it on the street, as they did in a recent segment aired on an Atlanta television station.

Under his plan, Cain proposes scrapping the current tax system and replacing it with a 9% corporate tax, a 9% personal income tax, and a 9% sales tax. Cain argues that the simple plan will revive the economy by promoting growth, and in his characteristic blunt style asserts that it will free taxpayers from a complicated tax code that has become “the 21st century version of slavery”.