If you haven’t read the “11-point Plan to Rescue America” proposed by Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), you might find it surprising that a Republican has proposed raising taxes. “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 says.

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The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that even if every household pays at least $1 in federal income tax, it would raise taxes by $100 billion annually, or more than $1 trillion over 10 years. “Almost all of it would be shouldered by households with income of $100,000 or less,” writes Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. Even Fox News host John Roberts grilled Scott over this point.

 

Raising taxes on Americans who are already trying to make ends meet is just one of several radical changes that Scott wants to make. He chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, but more importantly he was one of 147 Republican members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Scott’s former hospital network company has also paid one of the largest Medicare fraud settlements in history, covering the time he ran it. However, he escaped any wrongdoing.

 

Some of Scott’s point in his plan are vague, including some that even Democrats could agree with in principle. For instance, he talks about fighting for “maximum voter participation and zero percent voter fraud.” The reality is much different. Republican lawmakers have been pursuing measures to limit voter participation.

 

But much of Scott’s plan is to thwart progress advocated by the Democratic Party. For instance:
 

• Requiring public school students to “say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand for the National Anthem, and honor the American Flag” to foster patriotism.

• Eliminating the Department of Education.

• Imposing sunset provisions for all federal laws, requiring Congress to pass the same laws again every five years.

• Cutting IRS funding and reducing its workforce by 50 percent.

• Ending abortion and restricting transgender identities.

• Eliminating diversity training or teaching about history of minorities in the military.

• Imposing stiffer penalties for violent and non-violent crime as well as strengthening “qualified immunity” for law enforcement officers, which would protect them if they are accused of violating constitutional rights.

• Not really taking climate change seriously. Here’s what he wrote: “The weather is always changing. We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs.”

 

Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and top GOP leadership have not embraced Scott’s radical plan. “Let me tell you what would not be part of our agenda,” McConnell told reporters after the plan was released. “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”