Republicans Clash Over Their Agenda as Biden Pitches His
Taxes

Republicans Clash Over Their Agenda as Biden Pitches His

Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz

President Biden is expected to lay out a lengthy agenda in his State of the Union speech tonight, touting the benefits of the bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed while calling on Congress to enact a host of other plans.

While a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine will undoubtedly be front and center in Biden’s speech, the president will also push for measures that he says will lower costs for families, ask lawmakers to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and create a national paid family leave program. He’ll also look to revive other elements of the stalled legislative package that used to be known as the Build Back Better plan, including clean energy tax credits.

Biden will also outline a “unity agenda” of items that he believes both parties can support, including programs to improve mental health care, ease telehealth rules and “end cancer as we know it.”

Senate Republicans split on their agenda: Biden’s talk of a unity agenda raises the question again of just what’s on the GOP agenda — a question that has divided Senate Republicans and did so again in a very public way on Tuesday.

While much has been made of the Democratic divisions that have derailed major portions of Biden’s domestic agenda, Republicans’ own intraparty splits when it comes to detailing an election-year agenda have lately centered on an 11-point plan released by Sen. Rick Scott of Florida.

We told you last week that Scott’s conservative “Rescue America” blueprint for the GOP drew quick criticism from both the Left and Right for, among other things, seeking to have all Americans “pay some income tax to have skin in the game” — a proposal that harkens back to Mitt Romney’s controversial 2012 makers-vs.-takers framework, which, you may recall, both wasn’t accurate and failed to win Romney the election.

It’s that second part in particular that seems to be concerning some of Scott’s fellow Republicans right now. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “advised Scott at a GOP leadership meeting on Monday afternoon that his 11-point proposal gave Democrats ammunition for millions of dollars of ads in the midterms,” Politico’s Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine report, citing multiple sources briefed on the meeting.

McConnell made abundantly clear Tuesday that he doesn’t support Scott’s plan.

“If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I'll be the majority leader. I'll decide in consultation with my members what to put on the floor,” McConnell said in response to a question at the Senate Republican leadership’s news conference. “Let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda. 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."

McConnell and others have opted not to detail their policy plans if they should win control of Congress, preferring to keep attention on Biden and the Democrats. “We’re going to keep our focus on inflation, crime, the border and Afghanistan. And some of these other things are things to think about … after the election is over,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Politico.

And Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), running for an eighth term in the Senate at age 88, defended McConnell’s approach: “As a practical matter, you wouldn’t count your chickens before the eggs are hatched,” he told Politico. “McConnell is putting all of his effort into winning because if we don’t win in November, there isn’t such a thing as a Republican agenda.”

The bottom line: McConnell and a number of other Senate Republican leaders have been emphatic that they would not support Scott’s tax proposal. "I'm not for increasing anybody's income tax, whether they pay zero or they pay a lot," Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) told reporters, and Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) said he didn’t know of any other senator running for re-election who would back the Scott tax plan. As for what their agenda might include, McConnell kept it vague, saying that a Republican-controlled Senate would focus on "inflation, energy, defense, the border and crime."

TOP READS FROM THE FISCAL TIMES