U.S. Senator and Republican presidential hopeful Tim Scott is unveiling his “Build, Don’t Borrow” economic plan as he prepares for another campaign trip to Iowa.
Scott said his proposal targets runaway government spending while cutting taxes, expanding jobs, and “unleashing American manufacturing and energy production” with his Made in America agenda.
“On Joe Biden’s watch, China builds while America borrows. I have a plan to stop borrowing and start building, and create a future Made in America,” said the South Carolina senator. “We will lead the world in building, growing, and inventing the future.”
How exactly?
Scott said he would cut non-defense discretionary spending to pre-pandemic baseline levels, a move that could save trillions of dollars.
“The deficit is going to double this year alone,” the plan document states. “We aren’t at war; we aren’t in a pandemic; we just have the Biden Democrats in charge.”
Between President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 and April of this year, the U.S. debt has soared by more than $3.5 trillion, according to the Hofstra Chronicle. Much of that increase has been driven by his hefty spending measures — the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan, the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act.
Scott noted the fastest-growing category of federal spending is projected to be interest on the nearly $33 trillion national debt.
“In five years, we’ll be spending more on interest than on the entire U.S. military,” the senator’s plan states, referring to Congressional Budget Office projections.
Scott said he would lead the charge for a Balanced Budget Amendment and he’d create a 10th Amendment Commission to give power back to the states, noting five of the 10 highest-earning counties in the United States surround Washington, D.C.
“We have concentrated wealth and power because the federal government does too many things the Founding Fathers never intended,” the economic proposal states. The commission, led by the nation’s “best governors,” would be charged with cutting federal overreach and sending power back to the states.
The proposal would replace automatic raises for federal employees with merit pay and move cabinet staff out of D.C. That includes putting “most of the Dept. of Energy in Tennessee where we actually research nuclear power” and relocating “most of the Dept. of Agriculture in Iowa and let a farmer run it.”
Scott’s wide-ranging economic plan comes a day after his GOP nomination rival Vivek Ramaswamy laid out a detailed proposal to dramatically reduce the administrative state, including the mass layoffs of 1 million Civil Service employees in his first year in office.
The senator’s economic blueprint pledged to stop Biden’s proposed $4.7 trillion tax hike and make permanent the Trump/Republican tax cuts of 2017 that the senator helped author. And he said he would kill the death tax, a “death sentence” that Biden wants to expand.
“I won’t just protected stepped-basis, I will bury the death tax altogether,” he said, in a nod to Iowa farmers and other small business owners. “It’s unfair, immoral double taxation.” Scott is co-sponsor of the Death Tax Repeal Act.
The senator would need a receptive congress to help with many of the purse-string proposals he’s pushing.
His economic agenda is packed with conservative ideals.
“I will restore the culture of hard work that built America by rebuilding the skilled trades, strengthening work requirements with Welfare Reform 2.0, and defending the dignity of every job,” Scott says.
Like others in the crowded field of Republican presidential candidates, Scott promises to cancel Biden’s student loan bailout, and cut the welfare roles of able-bodied adults.
And Scott says he would build on his Made in America plan to rebuild the dwindling U.S. manufacturing base, “reclaim our supply chains, and create six-figure American jobs.” His plan includes tax cuts to incentivize building and maintaining production at home, and re-investing in U.S. energy independence.
On Thursday, the senator slammed Biden’s speech in which the president hailed his “Bidenomics” agenda for spurring job growth and cutting inflation, despite a new report showing inflation rose 3.7 percent from a year ago and was “hotter than expected.”
“Shameless. President Biden can call his economic plan whatever he wants — it doesn’t change the fact that it is disastrous for families and hardworking Americans,” Scott said in a statement. “What the American people really deserve is an apology tour — it would be a better use of everyone’s time. Families know Bidenomics isn’t working — they feel it every day.”
Scott is scheduled to meet with local business leaders in his home on Friday state to talk about his plan. Then he’s on to Iowa for a two-day swing through the first-in-the-nation caucus state. His economic plan promises to be a top topic of his stump speeches.
The candidate this week launched two new ads Underdog” and “Parental Consent,” part of his campaign’s latest $8 million ad buys in Iowa and New Hampshire.
– – –
M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Tim Scott” by Tim Scott.
