Sen. Rick Scott unveiled a right-wing policy blueprint yesterday, which many leading Democrats quickly saw as a gift. After all, the Florida Republican’s plan called for income tax increases on tens of millions of working-class Americans.
From the White House to Capitol Hill, Democrats could hardly believe their good fortune. The senator’s Republican allies were less pleased: Politico quoted a GOP operative saying the Floridian made an “unforced error that’s given Democrats the first thing they can attack in six months.”
Scott apparently felt the need to clean up the mess, so he sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity last night. “Did you see Chuckie Schumer saying that your plan is to raise taxes on more than half of Americans?” the host asked. “I didn’t see that in your plan. Did you have that in your plan? Was it in invisible ink in the copy that I got? Because I didn’t see that.” The senator replied:
“Of course not. No, Chuck Schumer who wants to raise taxes for everything, while as governor I cut taxes and fees 100 times. We’re the opposite.”
Part of the problem with this is that Scott’s answer was at odds with the question. The Republican was asked whether he proposed tax increases on tens of millions of Americans, and he responded by saying he cut taxes while he was governor.
Maybe so, but one has little to do with the other. It’s as if a police officer pulled Scott over for running a red light, at which point he bragged about stopping earlier at a stop sign.
But the other part of the problem is that Scott was simply denying reality when he said “of course” his plan didn’t propose tax increases on roughly half the country.
This need not be complicated. The GOP senator literally put this in writing: “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.” In other words, tens of millions of American adults currently don’t pay federal income taxes because they don’t make enough money to qualify. Scott, a member of the Senate Republican leadership, proposes changing that: He envisions a tax system in which those who don’t make enough money would have to pay more than they pay now. Not to put too fine a point on this, but that’s what “tax increase” means. A Washington Post analysis added yesterday: The language of the plan itself effectively acknowledges it’s advocating for an income tax increase on “over half of Americans” — a group of people that is overwhelmingly lower-income…. The political ads almost write themselves: The leader of the effort to elect a Senate majority wants to use that to raise taxes on as much as half of the country, however modestly. The GOP has for years defined virtually any new tax as a tax increase, and this meets that definition.
It’s far too late for Scott to pretend not to support his own plan. If the Florida Republican wasn’t prepared to stand behind his proposals, he shouldn’t have presented his ideas in writing.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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