Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., is warning President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan will “kill the goose that laid the golden eggs” — and wreck the nation’s economic system.
In remarks on Fox News’ “Life, Liberty & Levin” to air Sunday, Scott said Democrats didn’t get a mandate from voters in 2020 to enact a transformation of the American socioeconomic system.
"We have no idea, except for what we read in the newspapers… what's actually happening behind closed doors. It's like those old days of smoke-filled rooms in the middle of the night," Scott lamented.
"The deals are being cut, the American people are left out and the entire Republican Party, representing half of the votes in the Senate, literally relegated to the sidelines with no ability to actually have an input."
"There are no committees that are meeting and talking about the greatest transformation in a negative way of the greatest economic system ever known to man literally behind closed doors… A one-way ticket to socialism,” he added.
Scott, the first Black Republican from the South elected to the Senate since the 1870s, pointed out he’s an example of the current system’s success.
"This system that has allowed the poorest kids in this country to become some of the wealthiest kids; to allow for kids like me who nearly failed out of school to one day become a United States senator. It's because our system works," he said. "Sure, we can make it better, but this is not making it better."
Scott called out the Democrats' plan to tax unrealized gains, arguing it doesn’t only hurt the wealthy as its advocates claim.
"Part of their strategy right now is not only to increase the tax rates but to find new ways to generate revenue from revenue that is not [in] your account yet," he said
"That is something that is not just problematic. That is something that actually discourages the system itself."
"[E]very American who sells a house or sells a business that is a once in a lifetime transaction. To be double taxed on that is wrong," he said.
"But to take it from 23% now to 43% or to 30%, those earned 7-point increases or a 20 point increase – that is a 100% tax increase. We can't afford it," he asserted, adding: "We can't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. And this administration is antithetical to all things free enterprise, hoping for liberty and justice for all.”
“That is not what you're seeing,” he charged. “They're embedding discrimination in the middle of their economic platforms in ways we've never even seen before in our country."
Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., were continuing talks with Biden in Delaware Sunday amid a scramble by Democrats to reach agreement on social spending legislation.
Biden met at the White House on Friday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Schumer joined by video call from New York.
The leaders have been working with party moderates and progressives to shrink the once-$3.5 trillion, 10-year “Build Back Better” package to around $2 trillion in child care, health care and clean energy programs.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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