- Republicans want to retake Congress with little to offer in the form of an agenda.
- Sen. Rick Scott offered a platform of his own that included tax hikes, splitting with Trump.
- The GOP platform on the economy is up for grabs ahead of the midterms.
Republican leaders are seeking to retake Congress without much that resembles an agenda other than stoking culture wars against the left and trying to become "the party of parents." This week, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida started filling in the blanks with ideas of his own.
The head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee released an 11-point plan to "rescue America" that included a litany of conservative goals, such as completing the wall on the US-Mexico border, blocking so-called critical race theory from being taught in classrooms, nationwide voter ID laws, and balancing the federal budget.
He said it didn't represent a platform for Republicans on the ballot in November. But one bullet point within the document triggered fierce attacks from Democrats and the White House.
That proposal was aimed at compelling every American to pay some federal income tax so they'd have "skin in the game." It would amount to a tax increase falling squarely on middle- and low-income families, the Tax Policy Center said. The group found it would hike taxes by about $1,000 among Americans earning less than $27,000, under the hypothetical scenario of a $100 minimum tax.
Scott's small-government manifesto was a throwback to the tea-party ideology that once galvanized the conservative movement in the early 2010s — and which Donald Trump prevailed on Republicans to abandon. It also represented a break from Trump's view that paying zero dollars in income tax was an achievement to celebrate instead of something to penalize.
The GOP has yet to unite around an economic plan
Scott's agenda showcases how the GOP platform on the economy is largely up for grabs in November's midterms. Other conservatives, including Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, are pitching competing platforms as well. Cawthorn's would abolish the federal income tax system and eliminate the Education Department among other familiar GOP priorities.
"Republicans don't really have an economic policy agenda that they've united around since Trump's been elected," said Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute. He added that the former president upended traditional GOP views on free trade and federal spending.
"In terms of a Republican economic platform, broadly speaking, I don't really see one," said Victoria Gorman, the policy director at the Concord Coalition, an organization that advocates for a balanced federal budget.
The Florida Republican is widely viewed as a future presidential contender. Liam Donovan, a lobbyist and former GOP political operative, said he believed the entire proposal was meant to burnish Scott's conservative credentials ahead of a potential 2024 run.
"This is all kind of vibes-based, riffing off of popular themes," he said in an interview. "And I think there's open questions as to how any of those would translate into actual legislation."
It's possible that it won't amount to more than a messaging effort. Other planks of the Scott platform was comprised of a 12-year term limit on all federal employees and members of Congress, slashing the IRS budget by half, outlawing government collection of racial data, and ensuring all federal legislation sunsets after five years. "If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again," the plan stated. That may mean re-approving landmark laws such as the American with Disabilities Act or Social Security Act on an ongoing basis.
"I just don't think it is deep enough to be taking the Republican Party back anywhere or even forward anywhere because it's just a vibe," Donovan said. "This is meant to get your email address and get you to open your wallet."
"The provocation is the point," he added.
Scott's platform didn't contain a section on healthcare and was light on details regarding inflation, which recently hit a four-decade high. Scott has often clobbered the Biden administration for not keeping rising gas and food prices in check.
Scott's tax proposal doesn't seem popular in the GOP
Scott's "skin in the game" plan almost immediately drew comparisons to Mitt Romney's widely criticized tax comments during his 2012 presidential run. Romney argued that 47% of Americans who didn't pay income tax would only vote Democratic since they were "dependent on government."
That view of wealthy "makers" and poor "takers" has fallen out of fashion in the Republican Party because of Trump. He split the party from it and campaigned instead on preserving Social Security and Medicare — a breach of long-standing GOP calls to trim those programs and rein in federal spending. That wasn't always the case and Trump also floated ideas that either jeopardized their financial stability or would have prompted spending cuts.
There are scant signs that the GOP is coalescing around the income-tax plan or other tenets of the platform. Fellow Republicans skewered it, Insider's Warren Rojas and Nicole Gaudiano reported. "If I'm a Democrat looking at this list, this is candy in a store to go after," former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told them.
The blowback was so fierce that it prompted Scott to backtrack on parts of his blueprint. He later said the mandatory tax would apply only to "able-bodied" people and exempt retirees. It wasn't immediately clear how that would work in practice.
—Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) February 23, 2022
Democrats exploited the Scott plan to portray Republicans as being out of touch with working families. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee announced a five-figure radio ad buy one day after he introduced it. State-level Democrats in battleground races from Nevada to Georgia are also mounting fresh attacks.
For now, plenty of Republicans seem more than happy to simply attack President Joe Biden and Democrats. In January, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected laying out a GOP midterm platform, saying the party would make its goals known if it recaptured Congress: "I'll let you know when we take it back."
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is headed in the opposite direction. He's working with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to forge a new platform that rank-and-file House GOP members can rally around. While Republicans in each chamber are adopting different approaches to win big, their end-goal appears to be the same.
"I think they're going to run as a break on the Biden agenda," Riedl said. "And let's be honest, even if they win Congress, they're not going to be able to enact their agenda for the next two years. Their role will be stopping President Biden from passing policy."