Tasked with helping Republicans capture the Senate majority in November, Sen. Rick Scott handed Democrats an economic hammer to swing at his party this week with a plan that called for a tax increase on millions of Americans.
While most of Scott’s plan to “Rescue America” focuses on cultural battles about gender, race and education, a line in the economic section proposing a tax hike on low-income earners offered a new line of attack for Democrats.
After months of grappling with the political fallout from rising prices due to inflation, President Joe Biden’s team and other Democrats welcomed the opportunity to hit Republicans on cost-of-living issues.
“.@SenRickScott and Senate Republicans just released an economic plan that doesn’t include a single proposal to lower prices for the middle class. Instead he wants to raise taxes on half of Americans — including on seniors and working families,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Twitter Tuesday evening. “Seriously, that’s their plan.”
Democratic challengers around the country quickly moved to tie Republican incumbents to the proposal from Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP’s main campaign arm for Senate races.
Scott and other Republicans insist the document outlined only the senator’s own policy agenda and not the agenda of the broader Republican Party. But Democrats, pointing to Scott’s prominent role in the party, said it’s still fair game to use against GOP candidates up and down the ballot this year, particularly in the absence of an official GOP agenda from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“This is now the Republican plan,” said Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “This is the official plan of the party. And I believe every Republican has to answer for it. And if they disagree with it, they need to say so.”
Scott’s plan could hurt other Republicans
Republicans and Democrats are locked in a tight battle for control of Congress during this year’s midterm elections, with Republicans needing to gain just one seat in the Senate to win majority control there. It’s an eminently achievable feat, many GOP strategists say, given Biden’s low approval ratings and the party’s motivated base of voters.
But multiple GOP Senate campaigns reached out to the NRSC with concerns about Scott’s tax proposal following the release, a Washington-based Republican strategist involved in Senate races told the Herald.
“In general, Republicans are against tax increases, particularly when they’re levied against working families during a period of high inflation,” the strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told the Herald.
“I’ve not heard a single Republican advocate for tax hikes until the 11-point plan was released, and my guess is no one in our party will talk about this again in 2022. Plenty of candidates will talk about this in 2024,” the strategist said.
Scott, a former Florida governor elected to the Senate in 2018, has long been seen as a potential contender for the presidency in 2024. He’ll be speaking Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, a key gathering of national Republicans which often serves as an early testing ground for presidential campaigns.
A spokesperson for the NRSC declined to comment on whether GOP campaigns had reached out with concerns about Scott’s plan, saying the document was “not an NRSC product nor is it something he is pitching to GOP candidates.”
The NRSC chair — like the leaders of other political committees on Capitol Hill, including Democratic ones — typically focuses on less visible work like raising money and recruiting candidates for battleground races, which made Scott’s decision to launch the plan and an ad campaign around it unusual.
Republican strategists chafed at what they saw as Scott putting his personal ambition ahead of what’s best for the party. Rather than work quietly behind the scenes to bolster Senate candidates, they said, he went out of his way to burnish his own reputation with the party’s base — at the potential expense of his fellow Republicans.
One former NRSC official quipped that the committee should be renamed “The National Rick Scott Committee.”
“He wants to be the center of attention with the base, especially the Trump base,” said the former committee staffer, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “So picking a fight with McConnell is exactly what he wants for his future ambitions.”
The former NRSC official was especially frustrated, they said, that Scott released his plan just months before many of the party’s Senate primaries, potentially forcing many of the party’s candidates to adopt unpopular positions as they try to win over Republican voters. If the candidates win and move on to the general election, the staffer added, they’ll likely have to then quickly distance themselves from those same ideas to win over more moderate voters.
Wisconsin Democrat Mandela Barnes’ campaign attacked incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson on a “New Far-Right GOP Proposal Includes Tax Increases for over 100 Million Americans, Including Seniors and Dependent Children,” within hours of the release of Scott’s plan.
The Wisconsin race could determine control of the Senate as Barnes, the state’s lieutenant governor, is likely to win the primary to take on Johnson, the most vulnerable Senate Republican on the ballot this cycle. Scott’s plan could generate attack ads for Barnes, which Scott’s NRSC will have to defend Johnson against in the fall.
‘Over half of Americans’
Scott accused Democrats of mischaracterizing his plan. On Twitter, he denied his proposal extended to retirees despite his reference to more than half of Americans.
He instead claimed that the proposed change applied to those who “are able-bodied but won’t work to pay a small amount so that we’re all in this together.” But the language in Scott’s plan appeared to suggest a far more comprehensive tax increase on the majority of Americans.
“All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax,” the plan’s economic section states.
The economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily increased the percentage of Americans that did not owe federal income taxes to roughly 61% of U.S. households in 2020, a report by the Washington-based Tax Policy Center found. The same report predicted that number would fall to 40% by 2026 under current tax law.
Chris Hartline, a spokesman for Scott, said in an email that Scott cited the “over half” statistic because he believes it’s a data point Americans should know, but he maintained the proposed tax changes would not extend to retirees.
“There are too many people who are benefiting from government services without contributing to the system. That obviously would not include retirees who have paid plenty in taxes or working Americans who are paying into the system through either income tax, payroll tax or other taxes. He believes there are too many able-bodied Americans who are choosing not to work, partly due to policies from Joe Biden and the Democrats,” Hartline said in an email.
Hartline said Scott wasn’t surprised by the backlash to his plan.
“Senator Scott’s goal was to start a conversation — one that he knew the beltway class would hate — about changing that dynamic and he will continue talking with everyday Americans about his goals and his plan to rescue America,” Hartline said.
The Washington-based GOP strategist who criticized the plan said Scott’s follow-up explanation did little to change the plan’s cold reception among fellow Republicans. “The plain language is a tax hike. If he’s concerned about it, just make it a 10-point plan,” the strategist said.
Ripples in Rubio race
Scott’s plan also includes a proposal to reduce the workforce of the Internal Revenue Service by 50%, which could make it tougher to enforce the tax code while seeking to increase the number of people paying income tax.
Retirees represent a key voting bloc in Scott’s home state of Florida and Democrats have already sought to use the plan against Scott’s Senate GOP colleague up for reelection this year, Sen. Marco Rubio.
“Marco Rubio’s party boss is planning to hike taxes on Florida’s working class and senior citizens, and he’s going along with it,” Democratic Rep. Val Demings, Rubio’s likely opponent, said in a statement.
Rubio’s campaign did not immediately comment on Scott’s proposals. Other Republicans running this year also remained quiet about Scott’s plan.
Amid the backlash, Scott’s campaign released testimonials from well-known Republicans in support of the plan, but they noticeably came from former GOP officeholders, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Texas Gov. and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, rather than current senators or candidates.
Scott’s campaign also unveiled a television ad Thursday featuring the senator wearing a Navy cap, which highlighted the non-economic portions of the plan.
“Official Washington won’t like this plan, but you will,” Scott says in the ad.
