ICYMI: NPR: Sen. Rick Scott wants every American to pay at least some income taxes

March 17, 2022

**ICYMI**
Rick Scott is having a rough morning. In a brutal interview with NPR, Senator Scott doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on his plan to raise taxes on half of Americans, including seniors, retirees, and working families.  

NPR: Sen. Rick Scott wants every American to pay at least some income taxes
By Steve Inskeep
March 17, 2022

STEVE INSKEEP: Senator Rick Scott of Florida is defending proposals he wants to campaign on this fall. Scott leads the Republican effort to capture the Senate, he put out a document with numerous ideas, including two that captured a lot of attention. Scott said every American should pay at least some income taxes, have ‘skin in the game’ as he put it. About half of Americans currently do not earn enough to pay income taxes. 

[….]

INSKEEP: You said you don’t want to raise anybody’s taxes. However, if you’re saying everyone is going to pay income taxes, you are going to do that. I’m thinking of a working mom, who has a job, pays the Social Security payroll tax, pays the Medicare tax, pays sales taxes when they buy things, also may even have income tax withholding, but maybe she gets it back with the Earned Income Tax Credit at the end of the year. She’s just getting by. You’re saying that person is not paying enough and needs to pay something. That’s raising your taxes, isn’t it?

RICK SCOTT: I’m not gonna raise taxes. What I’m saying is we have people that have voted for government programs that could work and don’t want to work. And that’s what my focus is. We have billionaires that have figured out how to hire the right lawyers to not be part of this. So I want to make sure this is fair to all Americans… It’s real simple. 

INSKEEP: Just so I understand, if you’re not going to raise anybody’s taxes, that means you’re not calling for everybody to pay at least some income taxes?

SCOTT: I want to create a system where we’re all in this together. But I’m not raising taxes. I don’t believe in tax increases.

INSKEEP: I just don’t understand how that matches with telling everyone to pay some income tax when some people don’t.

SCOTT: It’s real simple. We got people that have voted for government programs that could go work and aren’t working. I’m not raising the tax rate, I’m not raising their taxes. I’m saying we got to get these people to work, so they’re part of the system.

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