NRSC Chair Rick Scott Would Like To Remind America How Much GOP Policies SUCK

Getting the quiet part tattooed across your forehead.

There's a reason that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted to take the GOP into the midterms without a party platform, and that reason is that the Republican Party's plans are dogshit. From criminalizing abortion to making prescription drugs more expensive, Republican policies are wildly outside the mainstream and broadly unpopular with young voters. The less these people talk about their ideas the better — and not just because they've saddled themselves to a madman who demands fealty to himself and nothing else. It's really too much to ask Republican candidates to have actual policies besides worshipping the Dear Leader.

And yet!

Politico reports that Florida Senator Rick Scott, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), has gone ahead and put out "An 11 Point Plan to Rescue America" from the supposed hellscape it has descended into since Biden took office. Perhaps he was trying to channel Newt Gingrich's Contract With America from 1994. But he appears to have wound up in 1995 with the Unabomber Manifesto, shadowboxing with imaginary enemies and totally divorced from reality.

"We will clean up our cities and stop pretending that crime is OK," he says, promising to fight back against "many prosecutors in big cities [who] are allowing criminals to go free with no justice, and they are doing it on purpose."

"Socialism will be treated as a foreign combatant which aims to destroy our prosperity and freedom," he blarbles. Which is hilarious, but also   not , since you don't need a GOP Secret Decoder Ring to grok that he means line up anyone who supports Medicare for All and shoot them.

According to Rick Scott, the GOP will "secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump"; "Eliminate truly non-essential government employee positions, because they are non-essential"; and "Move most Government agencies out of Washington and into the real world."

But not the Department of Education, which would be eliminated entirely because "Education is a state function. If Congress wants to spend money on education, they can cut out the middleman and send it directly to schools and parents."

And while we're just breaking shit to break shit: "All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again."

 Giphy   

And hell, while we're at it, let's sell off all "non-essential government assets, buildings, and land, and use the proceeds to pay down our national debt." Who needs national parks, right? Bet ya Elon Musk would pay a pretty penny for Yosemite. And maybe we can get Walt Disney to take the Smithsonian and the National Zoo off our hands if we promise to throw in Fort McHenry. Is the Lincoln Memorial "essential," or should we turn the reflecting pool into the world's most expensive country club?

Rick Scott has many boring words to say on the subject of "the woke crowd" and "critical race theory." But it's hardly surprising that people so proudly illiterate and hostile to public education would produce a document so completely ignorant of basic American civics.

"Kids in public schools will say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand for the National Anthem, and honor the American Flag," he insists, blithely overlooking a generation of First Amendment law because "We must foster national unity."

They'll bring back the line-item veto, which the Supreme Court struck down in 1998 as an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers, because "It works in state capitols. It will work in Washington." And they'll "employ military assets on our borders as needed," because Posse Commie-WHAT-us?

They'll make sure that no one in federal government has any institutional knowledge, with a 12-year limit on "government bureaucrats" up to and including senators and congressional representatives. This would require a constitutional amendment, not that Sen. Scott bothered to mention that.

The document is flagrantly, uproariously illegal. It fairly wallows in its own illegality like a pig in shit. Or as Scott puts it, "It’s not a lawyer’s draft of literal legislation, but rather an action strategy based on core American principles."

"We will STOP Democrat Party efforts to discriminate against faith-based adoption agencies," it promises, and if you squint you can almost see them lining up with emerging Supreme Court doctrine barring government agencies from disfavoring religious contractors. But then they veer off into a blatant vow to violate the Establishment Clause: "We will do just the opposite. Most faith-based groups provide far superior service than government agencies do. We will utilize and empower them."

In fact, they are pretty fuzzy on the whole separation of church and state thing generally.

"The nuclear family is crucial to civilization, it is God’s design for humanity, and it must be protected and celebrated. To say otherwise is to deny science."

Yes, for real, they said this.

"Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science," they insist, and in the very next sentence, "Men and women are biologically different, 'male and female He created them.'”

The entire thing is inane culture war claptrap, although they do get some diabolical creativity points for repurposing the phrase "Ban the Box" from a measure designed to help formerly incarcerated people reintegrate into the workforce to a blanket ban on government collection of any racial demographic data at all. Can't prove that districts are racially gerrymandered if you stop the Census from asking about race!

And in a particularly odd position for a former Florida governor, Scott insists that failure to pay income tax means that Americans have no stake in the working of the federal government.

"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," he writes, echoing Mitt Romney's infamous comments about 47 percent of Americans being dependent on the government and "pay no income tax." It does not appear to have occurred to him that this is literally advocating for a tax increase on the "over half of Americans" he insists pay no tax. Twenty-two percent of Americans are currently under the age of 18, and those little freeloaders need to pay up!

Rick Scott knows this plan isn't for everyone.

"It will be ridiculed by the ‘woke’ left, mocked by Washington insiders, and strike fear in the heart of some Republicans," he admits, before adding, "At least I hope so."

Girl, same.

And OPEN THREAD.

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