The “Grim Reaper of Democacy,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, did not want a 2022 Midterm legislative agenda. McConnell: No legislative agenda for 2022 midterms:
Mitch McConnell has told colleagues and donors Senate Republicans won’t release a legislative agenda before next year’s midterms, according to people who’ve attended private meetings with the minority leader.
On the night of Nov. 16, McConnell met with donors, lobbyists and a group of Republican senators in a private function room upstairs at the Capitol Hill Club. The 2022 agenda was on the menu.
In attendance was Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which convened the dinner.
A donor asked a question that could only be answered by McConnell. According to a source in the room, the donor said something to the effect of: We all know what’s wrong with the Democrats, but what are we going to be running on to help us win?
McConnell’s response was something to the effect of, With all respect, that’s not what we’re doing, the source said. McConnell has long held the view that putting out an agenda ahead of midterm elections is a mistake — at least for Senate Republicans, the sources told Axios.
This is not the first time that Mitch McConnell has had a “Do Nothing” agenda to offer voters in a midterm election, and unfortunately, Americans rewarded him in a base election in which Democrats failed to turn out to vote in a midterm election.
Mitch McConnell cannot even control his own caucus. Rick Scott pushes own GOP agenda as McConnell holds off:
Senate Republican leaders have no plans to release an alternative agenda as they try to win back the majority this fall. So Rick Scott is pursuing his own plan.
[It’s] a bold move for the first-term senator and National Republican Senatorial Committee chair. But Scott said the 31-page GOP agenda he’s crafted is separate from his work chairing the party’s campaign arm, adding that it’s “important to tell people what we’re gonna do.” It’s a clear break from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has declined to release a GOP agenda heading into the midterms.
The 11-point plan is a mix of longtime Republican positions, such as enacting a national voter ID law and shrinking the federal government, combined with culture war politics that define many GOP voters in the pro-Trump wing of the party. Scott said no one should be surprised that he’s devising his own plans, given his past record.
As Paul Waldman writes, Rick Scott reveals the GOP’s election strategy: All culture war, all the time:
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which tries to elect Republicans to the Senate, has released an 11-point blueprint that he hopes all Republicans will rally around as the midterms approach.
It’s as good a summary as you’ll find of what passes for an “agenda” for today’s Republican Party, in all its vulgar, paranoid, resentful glory.
The document’s first words are “Dear Fellow Americans, the militant left now controls the entire federal government, the news media, academia, Hollywood, and most corporate boardrooms,” and it only gets worse from there.
The 11 points resemble policy proposals, but every one is wrapped in culture-war provocation. Is the critical race theory panic No. 1? Of course it is: “Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them,” reads the first item.
From there, we get a string of meaningless chest-thumping (“We will protect, defend, and promote the American Family at all costs”), culture-war grunts (“Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies”), and the requisite nod to Trump (“We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump”).
And because it wouldn’t be a GOP “policy” document without inane ideas to make government less efficient and effective, it includes requiring “term limits” for government employees (heaven forbid we should have people with experience working in public service) and suggests cutting IRS funding and staffing by 50 percent.
Because apparently, Scott — the wealthiest member of Congress, with a fortune of a quarter-billion dollars, who was chief executive of a hospital chain that committed the largest Medicare fraud in history to that date — thinks it’s too hard for rich people to cheat on their taxes.
[O]ne hopes that even if Republicans rally around something like Scott’s plan, reporters will be less gullible this time. The Republican Party has become little more than an engine of resentment, one that runs on whatever fuel seems to be supercharging its supporters’ anger this month. Putting it in a glossy brochure doesn’t make it any more legitimate.
A year ago, none of them had heard of critical race theory; now they all claim it’s the most important thing in the world, once they remembered how powerful a motivator White grievance can be. A few weeks from now, they might decide that making trans kids’ lives miserable has politically run its course, and they’ll turn to something else. What it adds up to is not so much an “agenda” as a rotating list of things to be mad about.
One thing’s for sure: Republicans are feeling as confident as they ever have, and they won’t be bothered with complicated problems that demand difficult policy solutions. It’s going to be nothing but culture war from here on out.
Jennifer Rubin adds, Rick Scott just laid out a Republican agenda. He has done his party no favors.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) might be ruthless, cynical and power-hungry, but he is not dumb. There is a reason he declared late last year that the GOP would not put out an agenda for the midterms. When most voters learn what the party stands for (e.g., curtailing education on race, rolling back environmental laws, criminalizing abortion), they don’t like it.
Well, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, had other plans. He put out his own agenda on Tuesday — and it’s a doozy.
Let’s start with what is not in there: any proposal to bring down inflation (which Republicans have been hollering about for months); to increase wages or reduce income inequality; to prepare workers for the 21st-century economy; to provide relief from tariffs (which are essentially taxes); and to increase school performance on basic subjects.
What it does include is embarrassing. Start with this: “We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump.” Republicans had their chance to do this when the defeated former president was still in office and failed. Moreover, such a project would be so expensive that it has lost support in deep-red Texas. It’s also irrelevant to real border protection — so much so that it has become a punchline.
Scott’s agenda also includes draconian cuts to government that Republicans did not even favor when they were in the majority. The proposed 25 percent cut in the federal workforce will not be popular with anyone who visits national parks, relies on federal law enforcement, has an issue with Social Security, needs a tax refund or thinks we need a strong national defense.
Some items serve solely as an attack on minority groups. Consider this slam on transgender Americans: “Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science.” This has nothing to do with any conceivable federal policy. It’s pure culture wars fodder for right-wing media.
Then there are the massive tax hikes: “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.”
As Aaron Blake writes, Rick Scott thrusts the GOP back into Romney-‘47 percent’ territory:
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.
[Or what Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal for years referrred to as “Lucky Duckies.”]
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. [The number of Americans to whom this would apply has climbed during the pandemic.] In 2020, though, that number climbed as high as 61 percent, according to the Tax Foundation.
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.
Rubin continues:
That would affect tens of millions of Americans, including many working-class Americans and seniors. Interestingly, many corporations pay no federal income taxes, but the plan is silent on that. It might be the most regressive tax plan Republicans have ever come up with.
Some proposals are insincere, such as term limits for members of Congress (don’t keep running for office!). Others are pure racial demagoguery, such as the proposed ban on critical race theory in schools, over which the federal government has no authority. There’s also this statement: “Americans will not be required to go against their core values and beliefs in order to conform to culture or government.” What if one’s core belief is to discriminate against workers or refuse to pay taxes?
Some items are so deeply dishonest that they give away the game. The document accuses the left of rigging elections and deplores the term “voting rights,” which speaks volumes about how Republicans view their own voter-suppression tactics and schemes to subvert election results. This is the classic propaganda tactic: Accuse others of your own offenses.
Taken as a whole, the agenda reveals that the GOP is not a political party with ideas to improve the lives of Americans. It’s a frightful expression of White grievance and contempt for the intelligence of voters. And it confirms what we have long suspected: Republicans don’t lack an agenda; they’re just shy about revealing how unpopular it is. Democrats should publicize Scott’s blueprint far and wide.
Well, here you are.
Brad Reed reports, ‘Unforced error’: GOP consultants are trashing Rick Scott’s ‘Plan to Rescue America’ behind his back:
Democrats quickly pounced on the plan and hammered Scott for proposing such broad tax increases, as well as for reciting Trump-style falsehoods about Democrats “rigging” elections in their favor.
However, Democrats weren’t the only ones to slam Scott for his proposals — some Republican consultants weren’t happy either.
In a message to Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, one GOP consultant lamented that Scott’s plan was an “unforced error” that has “given Democrats the first thing they can attack in six months.”
Another consultant messaged Isenstadt and said that “this is what happens when Rick Scott’s presidential ambitions run headlong into Mitch McConnell’s goal of taking back the Senate majority.”
“Presidential ambitions”? Are you fucking kidding me? Sen. Rick Scott is one of eight Republican senators who provided aid and comfort to the violent seditious MAGA/QAnon insurrectionists who sacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, by voting not to certify the Electoral College results from Pensylvania. Florida’s Rick Scott’s vote on election may hinder him in new Senate GOP role.
Rick Scott, like all 147 Republican lawmakers who still objected to the election results even after the Capitol attack should be disqualifed from ever holding any public office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
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