Probably not.
Probably not.
S ince becoming Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell has never been a fan of the idea of the party’s producing a “Contract with America” type of document. The proposals tend to overpromise and under-deliver, especially when a president from the opposing party occupies the White House.
Florida GOP senator Rick Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, doesn’t share McConnell’s view. It’s “important to tell people what we’re gonna do,” Scott told Politico. So, acting on his own accord, Scott did just that, releasing an eleven-point plan (which actually includes 128 specific ideas).
Here’s Point Four: “We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump.”
Republicans couldn’t “finish building the wall” under President Trump, but they’re going to get President Biden to sign a bill to do it and name it after Trump?
It’s enough to make your eyes roll to the back of your head, but it’s not the kind of proposal that has the potential of harming any Senate GOP candidate.
One of Scott’s ideas on income taxes, however, is the kind of thing that would be politically toxic if many candidates ran on it: “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.”
Many commentators have made the case that Scott’s proposal echoes Mitt Romney’s comments in 2012 about the “47 percent” of Americans who don’t pay income taxes. (As Tim Carney notes, even those who don’t pay income taxes still pay many thousands of dollars in Social Security/Medicare taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and gas taxes.) Romney’s secretly recorded comments to a group of donors (foolishly) seemed to write off many voters who can and do vote for Republicans, and Scott doesn’t do that. But proposing to actually raise the taxes of 100 million Americans is probably much worse politics.
With that said, I doubt that Scott’s eleven-point plan — or even his boneheaded tax proposal — will matter in November. No one thinks of Rick Scott as the face of the Republican Party. The majority of Americans do not even know who he is. There is not a single Republican candidate in America who is afraid of saying — or would pay a price for saying — that he disagrees with Rick Scott about income taxes. What’s most important: There isn’t a chance his proposal would ever be turned into legislation that has a chance of passing.
It’s true that Scott’s proposal gives the mainstream press the opportunity to ask every single Republican candidate in America if they agree with Scott on raising income taxes on 100 million Americans, and a few candidates might be foolish enough to say yes.
There are many issues that will matter in November — Afghanistan, inflation, Covid, abortion, Ukraine, and much more. But in almost every race, I highly doubt that Rick Scott’s eleven-point plan will rank in the top issues that voters care about.