Washington Post: “The 11-point plan calls for new taxes on tens of millions of Americans, by rekindling the same issue that led Mitt Romney to stumble into his “47 percent” gaffe.”
ICYMI: Indiana House GOP proposed tax hike on Hoosier families via House Bill 1002
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Democratic Party, the organization that advocates for the future of Indiana and its families, today called on U.S. Senators Todd Young and Mike Braun to clarify their support for the U.S. Senate Republicans’ 11-point plan – “Rescue America” – to raise taxes on Hoosiers and invoke divisive culture wars across the state. U.S. Senator Rick Scott proclaimed this agenda as the Republicans’ compass for the 2022 elections, and it’s time for Todd Young to declare whether they support the Republicans’ vision for the Hoosier State.
Republicans in the Indiana General Assembly are already enacting this culture war agenda during the 2022 legislative session – including measures to politicize classrooms, attack innocent minors, and restrict voting rights. The Indiana House of Representatives even approved a tax hike on Hoosiers via House Bill 1002.
“The Indiana Republican Party is the Culture War Party, and it’s time for Todd Young and Mike Braun to say whether they support the 2022 election blueprint to raise taxes on Hoosier families,” said Lauren Ganapini, executive director for the Indiana Democratic Party. “Indiana House Republicans already handed families a tax hike at the worst possible time. The way to solve inflation is through a long-term plan, and it appears Democrats are the only ones who are ready to deliver again for Hoosier families.”
Washington Post: Rick Scott thrusts the GOP back into Romney-‘47 percent’ territory
“For a few years now, the leaders of the Republican Party have pretty steadfastly avoided outlining anything amounting to an actual party agenda.” […]
“The posture certainly reinforces that the GOP has come to be defined more by one man (Donald Trump) and his accompanying political ethos than by a consistent set of ideals.” […]
“Scott, the head of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, has responded to McConnell’s lack of an agenda with an agenda of his own. While stressing that it’s his own product and not affiliated with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Scott is a GOP leader and a potential future presidential candidate. Thus, it carries some weight.
And while many have focused on what the agenda says about culture-war issues such as transgender rights, one of the most striking and evocative parts is what it says about taxes. The 11-point plan calls for new taxes on tens of millions of Americans, by rekindling the same issue that led Mitt Romney to stumble into his “47 percent” gaffe.
“All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount,” the plan says. “Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.”
The language of the plan itself effectively acknowledges it’s advocating for an income tax increase on “over half of Americans” — a group of people that is overwhelmingly lower-income. And in fact, the number of Americans to whom this would apply has climbed during the pandemic.
While Romney overly simplistically referred to 47 percent of people who both paid no income tax and voted for Democrats because of it, the number who paid no income tax was indeed around half. In 2020, though, that number climbed as high as 61 percent, according to the Tax Foundation.
You begin to see the potential political problem here. Scott’s document doesn’t discuss the issue in as ham-handed a way as Romney did in that infamous video — though suggesting those who don’t pay income taxes don’t have “skin in the game” is certainly dicey. But it does advocate for raising taxes on, in the Tax Foundation’s estimate, as many as 75 million people who paid no such taxes after deductions and credits in 2020. If you include the 32 million who didn’t file returns, such as retirees, the number climbs well over 100 million Americans. (Scott’s plan isn’t explicit on whether his idea would include such people, but it does say “all Americans.”)
The political ads almost write themselves: The leader of the effort to elect a Senate majority wants to use that to raise taxes on as much as half of the country, however modestly. The GOP has for years defined virtually any new tax as a tax increase, and this meets that definition.”
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