GOP Plan To Raise Taxes, End Social Security & Medicare Is “Harming Senate GOP Incumbents And Challengers,” “Featured Prominently In Democratic Advertising”

New York Times: The plan “has divided his party, put Mr. Scott’s own candidates in awkward positions, and is already featured prominently in Democratic advertising.”
The Hill: “Aides say that Scott is harming Senate GOP incumbents and challengers in battleground states.”
MSNBC: “The problem for Republicans isn’t just that Scott wants to raise taxes on millions of Americans, it’s that he won’t stop talking about it.”

A wave of news coverage is highlighting how Senate Republicans’ plan to raise taxes on “over half of Americans” and put “an end to Social Security, Medicare” is “harming Senate GOP incumbents and challengers in battleground states” and has put their “candidates in awkward positions” as Republicans openly fret Democrats will continue to “wrap those tax increases around our necks.”

See for yourself:

New York Times: Income Taxes for All? Rick Scott Has a Plan, and That’s a Problem.

• Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the somewhat embattled head of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, said one utterly indisputable thing on Thursday when he stood before a packed auditorium of supporters at the conservative Heritage Foundation: His plan for a G.O.P. majority would make everyone angry at him, Republicans included.

• His “11-Point Plan to Rescue America,” with its call to impose income taxes on more than half of Americans who pay none now, and to sunset all legislation after five years, presumably including Social Security and Medicare… has divided his party, put Mr. Scott’s own candidates in awkward positions, and is already featured prominently in Democratic advertising.

• It is clear the Republicans have not figured out how to address their Rick Scott problem.

• The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated that ensuring all households pay at least $100 in income taxes would leave families making about $54,000 or less with more than 80 percent of the tax increase. Those making less than about $100,000 would shoulder 97 percent of the cost.

• Its economic section has been the focus. Beyond taxing everyone, under the plan, all federal laws would sunset in five years. “If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” the plan says. Taken literally, that would leave the fate of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to the whims of a Congress that rarely passes anything so expansive.

• Democrats are gleefully calling attention to it, even going so far as to promote the Republican senator’s speaking engagement on Thursday.

• “The chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee has put it on record in a document,” said David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, “and we are taking his word for it.”

• For Republican candidates, the issue is getting awkward. In Arizona, Jim Lamon… first called the plan “pretty good stuff.”

• Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said of the plan, “It’s good that people offer ideas.” His Democratic challenger, Representative Val B. Demings… ran an ad on social media accusing him of embracing it.

• At a Republican Senate debate in Ohio on Monday, the current front-runner, Mike Gibbons, called the plan “a great first draft in trying to set some things we all believe in,” adding, “The people that don’t believe them probably shouldn’t be Republicans.”

• Mr. Scott on Thursday [said]… “It’s time to have a plan. It’s time to execute on a plan.”

The Hill: Rick Scott agenda push baffles GOP

• Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee is pushing a… controversial agenda.

• Scott is not backing away from promoting his “Rescue America” agenda despite pressure from Senate Republican leaders, who warn that he’s muddling their election-year message and giving Democrats a target to attack.  

• Democrats are pouncing on Scott’s plan with gusto.

• The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Wednesday launched a new digital ad featuring “Fox News Sunday” John Roberts highlighting Scott’s “11-point plan to raise taxes on half of Americans and potentially sunset programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”   

• “Actually, the biggest tax hike of the century would be the Senate GOP plan, which would be around $100 billion in 2022 alone,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted back at McConnell.   

• Scott continued to tout his plan Thursday. He delivered remarks and held a question-and-answer session about it at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, where he told a roomful of reporters “this is not the time to be timid.”

• His most controversial proposals are to require all Americans to pay some income tax, if only a small amount, and to sunset all federal legislation in five years. He points out that currently more than half of all Americans don’t pay any income tax.

• The DSCC released a radio ad within 24 hours of Scott unveiling his plan to highlight how it would raise taxes.   

• Some aides say that Scott is harming Senate GOP incumbents and challengers in battleground states.

• “If he thinks it’s helping him, it’s hurting other Republican senators,” said a Senate GOP aide, who requested anonymity to comment candidly about Scott’s Rescue America plan. “The Democrats are trying to wrap those tax increases around our necks.”   

Business Insider: GOP Sen. Rick Scott says Republicans are ‘parroting’ Democratic attacks on his tax plan only hours after McConnell criticized it 

• Scott’s “Rescue America” plan does include a measure aimed at compelling every American to pay some federal income tax so they’ll have “skin in the game.” That would amount to a tax increase.

• The Scott plan includes another provision to sunset every federal law after five years, opening the possibility that Congress would have to periodically reapprove safety-net programs providing retirement and health benefits to Americans if it were implemented.

• Democrats have seized on these pieces of the Scott agenda as fodder to run attack ads against Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections.

• The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Wednesday announced a five-figure digital advertising campaign focused on Scott’s tax proposal. It’s aimed at reaching older voters in eight states including Nevada, Georgia, Florida, and New Hampshire.

• And the DSCC had its own presence outside the Heritage event on Thursday, with people holding signs calling attention to the “GOP tax hike” in his plan.

MSNBC: On proposed tax hikes, GOP’s Rick Scott just can’t help himself

• Ahead of Republican Sen. Rick Scott’s appearance at the Heritage Foundation, where he was scheduled to tout his controversial policy blueprint, the Democratic National Committee decided to lend a hand: Democrats encouraged reporters to attend the GOP leader’s event.

• The Florida senator’s plan, among other things, proposes tax hikes on tens of millions of Americans, and Democrats are eager to exploit this election year gift.

• This isn’t a situation in which Republicans are parroting Democratic lies; this is a situation in which people are simply reading what Scott put in writing.

• Complicating matters for his party is the repetitive nature of Scott’s problem. In recent weeks, the Republican leader has done multiple national media interviews and faced predictable questions about his proposed tax hikes. He’s also repeatedly struggled with the questions. Each incident, to Democrats’ delight, keeps the story alive, creating a new round of headlines about the ambitious GOP senator and his plan to increase taxes on 57 percent of [the] adult population.

• The problem for Republicans isn’t just that Scott wants to raise taxes on millions of Americans, it’s that he won’t stop talking about it.

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