Rick Scott thrusts the GOP back into Romney-'47 percent' territory - The Washington Post
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
For a few years now, the leaders of the Republican Party have pretty steadfastly avoided outlining anything amounting to an actual party agenda. The 2020 Republican platform was merely a (somewhat awkward) repeat of its 2016 document, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pointedly declined to state in advance what he would do with a Senate majority after the 2022 election. "I'll let you know when we take it back," McConnell has said.
The posture certainly reinforces that the GOP has come to be defined more by one man (Donald Trump) and his accompanying political ethos than by a consistent set of ideals. But it also serves a rather evident purpose: to avoid pinning the party down on specifics that might become liabilities at some point — particularly as its principles have shifted markedly in recent years.
All of which Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has now reinforced.
Scott, the head of Senate Republicans' campaign arm, has responded to McConnell's lack of an agenda with an agenda of his own. While stressing that it's his own product and not affiliated with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Scott is a GOP leader and a potential future presidential candidate. Thus, it carries some weight.
And while many have focused on what the agenda says about culture-war issues such as transgender rights, one of the most striking and evocative parts is what it says about taxes. The 11-point plan calls for new taxes on tens of millions of Americans, by rekindling the same issue that led Mitt Romney to stumble into his "47 percent" gaffe.
"All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount," the plan says. "Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax."
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. And in fact, the number of Americans to whom this would apply has climbed during the pandemic.
While Romney overly simplistically referred to 47 percent of people who both paid no income tax and voted for Democrats because of it, the number who paid no income tax was indeed around half. In 2020, though, that number climbed as high as 61 percent, according to the Tax Foundation.
You begin to see the potential political problem here. Scott's document doesn't discuss the issue in as ham-handed a way as Romney did in that infamous video — though suggesting those who don't pay income taxes don't have "skin in the game" is certainly dicey. But it does advocate for raising taxes on, in the Tax Foundation's estimate, as many as 75 million people who paid no such taxes after deductions and credits in 2020. If you include the 32 million who didn't file returns, such as retirees, the number climbs well over 100 million Americans. (Scott's plan isn't explicit on whether his idea would include such people, but it does say "all Americans.")
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.
The move is also particularly interesting because it's far out of step with how at least one prominent Republican tackled this issue during the Trump era. As NBC's Benjy Sarlin wrote a year ago, Trump effectively said people not having to pay income taxes was something to be celebrated. He proposed codifying a zero percent income tax rate for those making $25,000 per year individually or $50,000 as a married couple — rather than those people merely getting to zero through deductions. He even floated sending those people tax returns that stated, "I win." Trump proudly projected his plan would increase the number of Americans who didn't pay income tax to 75 million.
Precisely why this was included in Scott's agenda is an interesting question — both given how it contrasts with Trump's tax vision and because of the headaches it could cause the party. For now, though, much like Romney's 47 percent comment, it's going to force some measure of accounting. That would start, it would seem, with McConnell and the candidates whose election to the Senate Scott is in charge of leading.
At the very least, it would seem a good opportunity to start talking about what the GOP would actually do with that Senate majority.
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Generally speaking, forcing the poor to pay income taxes is a silly, absurd idea that would literally make poor people poorer, or require increased social spending such as SNAP.
Is it any wonder that the once Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln is now known merely as the gop?
On the other hand, a flat tax of 9% or 10% without any deductions or exemptions would insure that everybody is paying the same in taxes and nobody is getting a free ride. No more bitching about the mega-rich who pay less in taxes than their secretaries. And while I don't have that info right at my fingertips, I think it was said that a 9% flat tax would also generate sufficient federal income that they could also build a single-payer health care system to replace what we have now.
Herman Cain couldn’t sell it though. Shucky ducky.
I love that term.
Democrats aren't interested in fairness.
If they were, they wouldn't have fought so hard to give huge tax breaks for wealthy people.
Suggesting others help pay for those tax breaks for the wealthy seems like it would sell well on the campaign trail.
/s
The last time I read up on a flat tax (which I like as a basic idea) I was seeing rates would have to be somewhere between 30 and 35 percent. If you have something from an independent source for 9 or 10 percent I'd love to read it.
If we collected a little from all the taxpayers who don't have to pay any now, it would certainly add up, especially if we take all deductions away. No more of people getting thousands back in tax "returns" when they pay nothing.
Imagine someone making 500,000 per year and paying taxes on it without deductions!
TBH I just used the 9% as a number, not the actual percentage that people would have to pay. The thrust of my comment was a flat tax where everybody paid the same percentage of their income, in reply to comment #1 and in reply to the complaint that the rich don't pay their fair share.
Good. Everyone should be paying something.
Getting something for nothing is a completely Democrat principle that makes no sense. Especially in a society that frowns on freeloaders.
Getting something for nothing is a completely Democrat principle that makes no sense.
Tell that to the multi-billionaires who pay 0%, and the mega churches throughout the country who fill their coffers with cash from suckers who drive there on roads paid for by everyone but the churches.
Ummm the people IN the churches as well as the staffs of them pay for the roads through their personal taxes.
And the church gets to rake in the money tax free. What part of that is difficult for you to understand?
Ummmm but they are also non-profit organizations too so they basically need to break even every year meaning the money comes in, and the money goes out for various ministries and programs both within their communities as well as across the globe as well as maintaining the property
You clearly don’t know how televangelists and mega churches operate.
Maybe it is you who doesn't understand how non-profits operate and work.
I’m not saying that all churches are run like that, but go ahead and google televangelist and private jet in the same search.
That makes two of us then.
I am not interested in bashing churches. I'll leave that for those who are uncomfortable with religion in general and Christianity in particular.
And I did. Evidently the government nor the followers necessarily have a problem with them justifying it as necessary to do their "jobs". I read about Kenneth Copeland in particular.
Nope, not paid for by the 47% who don’t pay any net federal income tax.
Try again ....
If you make poor people pay income tax you are literally making them poorer.
The only alternative to literally making them poorer would be to increase Snap or EBT or some other government benefit.
Asking poor people to pay income tax is idiotic.
Nah, characterizing people making 40k a year as “poor” is the idiotic thing. Totally nuts actually since according to your own government the poverty line is about half that for a family of three.
That’s about the bottom 20%.
Everyone can afford to pay something.
Everyone but the bottom 20% or so.
Don't ignore the obvious implications -- Republicans are more open to tax increases. That's a seismic change for the Republican Party. This is actually a move toward common ground with Democrats.