Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., removed a provision that would require poor people to start paying federal income tax from his revised agenda after it was bashed by fellow Republicans.
The proposal was included in the original version of Scott’s 11-point plan, which he released in February and has pushed as a possible blueprint for the Republican Party to take back the Senate this fall.
“All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game,” said a previous version of the plan.
Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, adjusted his “Plan to Rescue America” on Thursday, replacing the tax proposal with another one focused on people under age 60.
“Able-bodied Americans under 60, who do not have young children or incapacitated dependents, should work. We need them pulling the wagon and paying taxes, not sitting at home taking money from the government,” the updated agenda said. “Currently, far too many Americans who can work are living off of the hard work of others, and have no ‘skin in the game’. Government must never again incentivize people to not work by paying them more to stay home.”
The revisions, made on a day when most media attention is focused on the House Jan. 6 committee’s first public hearing, came after Democrats seized on the plan, featuring the tax proposal in party ads.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee field-tested Scott’s plan this year with swing state voters and found strong aversion to the tax increase language.
Last month, President Joe Biden referred to the plan as an “Ultra-MAGA Agenda.”
“Under this new plan, while big corporations and billionaires would pay nothing more, working-class folks are going to pay a hell of a lot more,” he tweeted at the time.
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has also rejected Scott’s agenda.
“Let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda,” he said in March. “We would 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. That will not be part of a Republican Senate majority agenda.”
NBC News has reached out to Scott’s office for comment.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
