U.S. Sen. Rick Scott was blasted by Democrats on Tuesday after his “11-Point Plan to Save America” called for the more than half of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, largely the poor and retirees, to pay something, saying they need “to have skin in the game.”
Scott’s plan also calls for a ban on the federal government collecting data on race or ethnicity as well as sexual preference and gender identity. The ban would apply to the U.S. Census, too.
Scott’s plan also calls for eliminating data collection on the LGBTQ community, in a section that appears to target transgender people but which would have much wider implications.
“Humans are born male and female, there are two genders, and to deny that is to deny science,” Scott wrote. “No government forms will include questions about ‘gender identity’ or ‘sexual preference.'”
The other points include requiring the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms, federal intervention against local prosecutors, finishing former President Trump’s border wall and naming it after him, treating “socialism” as a “foreign combatant,” term limits for politicians and ending all federal legislation after five years.
Scott, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, issued the 11-point plan on Tuesday despite Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declining to issue an official GOP Senate platform himself.
McConnell and Scott are hoping to maneuver GOP candidates through some tight races nationally as they try to have Republicans regain the Senate in the November elections.
In the plan, which did not appear to be an official NRSC release, Scott wrote, “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 proposal would have a major impact if it ever became law.
According to the Washington Post, the Tax Foundation estimates as many as 75 million people, largely lower-income, paid no federal taxes after deductions and credits in 2020. Another 32 million didn’t file returns, including retirees whose only source of income is Social Security.
Democrats and liberal groups immediately attacked Scott’s plan.
“Rick Scott’s plan is confirmation that he and today’s Republican Party do not care about the issues that matter to people most like lowering costs,” the Florida Democratic Party said in a statement.
“Instead, this out-of-touch ‘blueprint’ would raise taxes, lower benefits, and make life harder for the vast majority of Floridians — while totally ignoring the question of how working families are supposed to pay their bills or find affordable medical care,” the statement said.
Liberal Super PAC American Bridge quoted a writer from a conservative publication questioning the plan.
“Might also have been good to put out an agenda that did not include raising taxes on more than a hundred million Americans,” Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review wrote on Twitter.
Scott’s plan also states, “Government will not ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government form.”
Scott said it would result in “the colorblind future America deserves.”
Business Insider reported that the ban on racial and ethnic data would include the 2030 Census. The Census is a key tool to determine the size of racial and ethnic groups in enforcing the Voting Rights Act, said Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida.
“For the Voting Rights Act, it’s necessary to have information about population counts by race,” McDonald said. “So that when you’re drawing a district, you can draw districts in a way that will uphold the 14th and 15th Amendment guarantees of drawing districts to not dilute or diminish the ability of persons of color to participate in or have their votes be effective in elections.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature are at odds over whether to eliminate one African American congressional district in North Florida and potentially water down another Black district in Orange County.
A ban on collecting racial data could also affect the 15th Amendment, McDonald said.
That amendment says, “no voting law shall discriminate against people by the color of their skin or former servitude,” McDonald said. “There’ll be a conflict with the federal constitution on that.”
Scott’s Senate office referred all questions about the plan to a campaign spokesperson, who did not immediately return requests for comment.
