RED-FACED: Fox News embarrasses Rick Scott in brutal fact check of his plan to raise taxes on poor
Even Fox News has a difficult time understanding how Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) could devise an 11-point plan for the future of America that raises taxes for the poorest Americans — instead of the richest — and calls for policies that could end the social safety net provided by Social Security and Medicare.
This morning Senator Scott faced an incredulous John Roberts, the host of Fox News Sunday, who couldn’t help but ask him about his misbegotten radical right-wing plan to transform America into an even more class-stratified society that would force many seniors into a life of poverty and untreated illnesses.
Roberts quoted directly from Scott’s plan as a prelude to asking the Florida GOP senator to explain himself.
“All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americas [sic] pay no income tax,” the first Fox News graphic read.
“All federal legislation sunsets in five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” a second graphic quoting the text of Scott’s proposal read.
Roberts then summarized what he just read aloud.
“That would raise taxes on half of Americans and potentially sunset programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security,” Roberts explained, before asking incredulously, “Why would you propose something like thta in an election year?”
Seemingly aware that his proposal was hanging like a billionaire’s albatross across his neck, Senator Scott immediately tried to dismiss that analysis as a mere Democratic talking point.
To his credit, Roberts refused to let him slip out of the controversy engendered by his tone-deaf proposal without admitting the reality of what was actually called for in his dastardly political manifesto.
“No! No! It’s in the plan,” Roberts interrupted the obviously defensive senator. “It’s in the plan,” he chuckled at the audaciousness of Scott’s denial of the very essense of his own political platform.
Scott tried to recover by starting to admit that even he himself didn’t believe that he would ever be able to achieve his aims in the harsh light of reality.
“But here’s the thing about reality, for a second,” the senator began, inching away from the sad actual reality of the text of his platform.
“But, but, but Senator, hang on, hang on” Roberts again interrupted his guest. “It’s not a Democratic talking point. It’s in the plan!”
Caught in his lie, even in the presumably friendly environs of the most successful right-wing TV news media outlet, Scott struggled to recover by citing a part of the plan that calls for yearly congressional discussions of how to fix Medicare and Social Security, but the damage was done.
Senator Scott’s plan was dead in the water from the moment that he announced it, with fellow Republican senators as perplexed as John Roberts was that he would even imagine suggesting such unpopular measures in a midterm election year.
Still, Scott’s plan is a cautionary tale of what the Republican politicians — bought and sold by the donations from their billionaire oligarch overlords in many peoples’ opinions — could enact if they regain control of Congress in November.
All the more reason to do everything in our power to prevent that from happening.
You can watch a clip of Senator Scott squirming in his seat on Fox News Sunday with John Roberts in the video below.
"It's in the plan! It's in the plan. But Senator, hang on, it's not a Democratic talking point. It's in the plan" — even Fox News's John Roberts can't believe it when Rick Scott lies about his own policy plan, which calls for a tax increase on a majority of Americans pic.twitter.com/sa4WgUBgyJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 27, 2022
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