What Rich White Guys Want From Government
Forget Public Service- Rick Scott is all-in for the plutocracy
“Money doesn’t talk, it screams.”- A variety of perceptive Americans
It seems quaint nowadays to refer to an elected official as a “public servant”. Many of them appear to skip the “public” part and head straight for the buffet of “services” that benefit them personally. Take one of the Senators from my home state, Florida, Rick Scott. Scott is reputed to be the wealthiest member of the Senate, with an estimated net worth over $220 million. If we judge business success by the metric of wealth accumulation, Scott has had a very successful career as co-founder and CEO of what eventually became the nation's largest private for-profit health care company, Columbia Health. He resigned under pressure in 1997, jumping ship as the Department of Justice came after the company for Medicare, Medicaid, and other frauds. Charged with 14 felonies, the company eventually settled for a total of $2 billion in fines and reimbursements, then the largest fine ever levied on a health care company. Scott was not prosecuted for his role though it is interesting to note he asserted his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself 75 times when he was deposed by Federal investigators in 2000.
After continued success in business ventures, Scott slithered into politics in 2009 when he founded the lobbying group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights. In 2010, he jumped all the way in and successfully ran for Governor of Florida. (His campaign spent an estimated $75 million.) Term-limited out of the Governorship in 2018, he ran for Senator and defeated incumbent Democratic Bill Nelson by a narrow margin. His time in the Senate has been marked by his staunch support for Donald Trump and party line votes, especially in opposition to President Joe Biden’s agenda.
Currently, as Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Scott is helping direct GOP efforts in this year’s midterm elections. To that end, he released an 11-point plan with over 100 specific policy goals to guide GOP candidates. Let’s see if any of these are self-serving.
Rick Scott’s 11-Point Plan
Education
Color Blind Equality
Safety and Crime
Immigration
Growth / Economy
Government Reform and Debt
Fair Fraud-Free Elections
Family
Gender, Life, Science
Religious Liberty and Big Tech
America First
A Sampling of Senator Scott’s Specific Policy Goals:
Every child in every school to say the pledge of allegiance, stand for the national anthem and learn that America is the greatest country in this world.
What happens to freedom of expression? This is indoctrination, not education. Forget Critical Race Theory- our children won’t be learning Critical Thinking.
End our economic relationship with communist China.
How will Walmart stay in business?
Twelve-year term limits for politicians and for government bureaucrats.
We already have term limits for politicians- they’re called elections. As far as civil servants, let’s ask the Senator if a private business would jettison valuable experienced workers because of an arbitrary time limit. And I thought conservatives wanted the government to be run like a business.
Recognize that there are 2 genders- men are men, women are women.
Shocking that the Senator is not capable of discriminating between the human body and human behavior.
Securing our border, building the wall, and naming it after President Donald J. Trump.
This is puzzling because I thought Senator Scott was a small-budget guy and Trump already proved that the wall is a waste of money wrapped around a boondoggle and stuck inside a clusterfuck, just like many other Trump ventures.
Close the Department of Education since education is a state function.
The quality of education already varies from poor to good among states; imagine what happens when there are no national standards and no Federal funding.
The US military would not engage in diversity training or "any woke ideological indoctrination that divides our troops."
The country is already diverse so it seems that a large organization like the military comprised of thousands of people would want to to further cohesion by allowing members to better understand their colleagues from varied backgrounds. The goal is to mold an effectively functioning force, not advance an agenda.
Immigrants would not be able to collect unemployment benefits or welfare until they have lived in the country for seven years.
Red meat for the xenophobes out there, in reality pure, unadulterated BS. Legal immigrants are currently not eligible for Federal benefits (e.g. Medicaid or food stamps) until they have been Legal Permanent Residents for 5 years. Undocumented immigrants are obviously ineligible.
The federal budget would be balanced and, if not, members of Congress would not be paid.
Rent-seekers (those seeking to increase their own wealth without creating any benefits or wealth for the society) would be apoplectic over this since government borrowing (“debt”) effectively transfers our tax dollars out of the government's hands into the private sector. Again, it is shocking that our elected officials don’t comprehend double-entry bookkeeping (debits & credits), let alone macroeconomics. And as far as docking their pay, most of them make more money from “other activities”.
Federal debt ceiling increases would be prohibited unless accompanied by a declaration of war.
The debt ceiling is the Improvised Explosive Device of fiscal legislation. Passed into law in 1917 to allow the government to issue bonds without specific authorization for each individual loan, it has become an artificial barrier to the fiscal operations of the Federal government and the source of several crises when Congress has not increased it. Republicans have used as a political lever, forcing the government to shut down unless their demands were met. Since it deals with expenditures already authorized by Congress, it should be eliminated completely. One less kabuki display by our national legislature would be good for democracy. Of course, we could always declare war on Trinidad and Tobago to justify the increase.
All federal legislation would have a sunset provision five years after it passes.
Given the pace at which Congress produces legislation, the need to re-invent the wheel every 5 years would bring the government to a standstill. Maybe that’s the object.
Funding for the IRS, as well as its workforce, would be cut by 50%.
Great… Let’s cripple the one agency of government that actually brings in the most revenue. Of course, Republicans have had the tax collectors in their sights for years: staffing and budget have been relentlessly reduced, and - guess what?- the result is a large decline in the audits of corporations and multi-millionaires (like Senator Scott). That decline is reflected in the decrease of taxes recovered from the one-percent bund.
Voter ID would become the law of the land and same-day voter registration would be banned.
I’m sorry to have to inform the Senator that the Constitution (Article 1, Section 4) gives the states broad discretion over elections for Federal office.
Biological males would be banned from competing in women's sports.
How about this: some enterprising and ‘woke’ entrepreneur starts a sports league- baseball, basketball, ice hockey, for instance- open to anyone regardless of gender. Why would a champion of the business sector like Senator Scott wish to mandate how a private business must operate? Anyway, be glad, ladies, that at least NASCAR is woke enough for you to race around in a circle with the guys.
All social media platforms that censor speech and cancel people will be treated like publishers and subject to legal action.
Is this another example of a conservative betraying his team by insisting the government insert itself into the private sector?
No tax dollars could be used for diversity training or other woke indoctrination that is hostile to faith.
What if my faith (I am a reverend in the Universal Life Church) accepts diversity training and other woke indoctrination (whatever that means)?
No dues would be paid to the United Nations or "any international organization that undermines the national interests of the USA."
“Undermines the national interests of the USA”… Sounds suspiciously like the current Republican Party. Given the support for Putin the Punisher by so many Republicans, it would not be a stretch to call the Party an “international organization”.
“We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs."
Let me interpret this for those not fluent in modern political New Speak: "We will talk about climate change as if we’re willing to take action, but the reality is we will not permit our bottom lines to be impinged upon by actually doing anything about it. After all, by the time the ocean floods south Florida, I’ll be dead and buried and my children will be living in Aspen.”
One thing is for certain, Rick Scott knows how to butter his own bread. He obviously subscribes to the peculiar version of libertarianism that is so attractive to the wealthy (the Kochs come to mind)- low or no taxes, and definitely no government regulation. But let’s not short-change Scott’s plan: he is shrewd enough to include enough culture war talking points to be the shiny object that distracts the rubes who he needs to vote for Republicans.
A sad note: Richard Goldsmith, a friend whose name some of you may recognize from his comments on this newsletter, passed away on March 25 at the age of 79. He will be missed by his family and friends, and by those of us who were witness to his thoughtful and curious approach to life. Let this be the stone I place for him.
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