THE GOP WANTS TO CRACK DOWN ON RICH ELITES NOW, EXCEPT WHEN IT MIGHT COST THE ELITES MONEY

After being called out for continuing to donate cash to Florida politicians who support the state's "Don't Say Gay" bill, the Walt Disney Company suspended its political donations in Florida and CEO Bob Chapek expressed opposition to the bill. When Governor Ron DeSantis made Disney's opposition a point of pride, the originator of the "critical race theory" moral panic and a reporter for Glenn Beck's BlazeTV got thrills up their legs:

I love him 🥲

— Allie Beth Stuckey (@conservmillen) March 11, 2022

He has what it takes.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 11, 2022

Meanwhile, Florida's lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nuñez, declared that corporations don't have the legal right to criticize laws:

Florida Lt. Governor: They will try to bully us like Disney doing. How dare they. They have no right to criticize legislation by duly elected legislators… Governor DeSantis and I won’t stand for it pic.twitter.com/iIhWtrElZC

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 12, 2022

This was an offhand remark -- I don't think Republican politicians in Florida are quite ready to make criticizing the government against the law ... at least for now. But American politicians across the ideological spectrum used to understand that any attack of this kind had to be preface with "Well, of course we have freedom of speech in this country, but..." however, we're raising a new crop of Republicans for whom that's no longer an instinct. We should be concerned about that.

Yastreblyansky says:

Party ready to die for the principle of corporate free speech in the form of money not so hot on corporate free speech in the form of speech https://t.co/08zALhuUn2

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) March 12, 2022

But don't shed too many tears for wealthy elitists in Florida -- their lobbying money means they still get what they want:

In the nine months since 98 people died in the collapse of a Surfside, Florida, condominium, state lawmakers have pledged to pass measures that could help avoid a similar disaster.

On Friday, they failed.

Negotiations between the Florida Senate and House of Representatives, both controlled by Republicans, broke down, with the two sides unable to agree on a bill that would require inspections of aging condo buildings and mandate that condo boards conduct studies to determine how much they need to set aside for repairs....

Enacting condo reforms has been difficult in Florida, where each year part-time lawmakers have 60 days to pass new laws, and where veteran lobbyists and trade groups hold outsize influence, enabling the condo industry to fight measures that owners see as too restrictive or expensive.

Money still talks in Florida. Meanwhile, in D.C., one of Florida's leading Republicans is fighting to transfer even more money from the non-rich to the rich, as Dana Milbank notes:

[Senator Rick] Scott’s proposal ["An 11-Point Plan to Rescue America"] is easily the most radical document to be put forward by a member of the leadership of a major political party in modern times....

[Scott] is proposing a 10-year tax increase of more than $1 trillion on, in his own words, “more than half of Americans,” to make sure every household pays taxes. The bean counters at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ran the numbers on what ITEP called the “only possible interpretation of Sen. Scott’s proposal” (making sure every household pays at least $1 in federal income tax) and found that the Republican plan would raise taxes by $100 billion a year, or more than $1 trillion over the standard 10-year budgeting time frame. Almost all of it would be shouldered by households with income of $100,000 or less.

Scott’s plan would also sunset — eliminate — all federal legislation over five years, under the (risky) assumption that worthy laws would be reenacted. That could mean an end to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid ... — and potentially more.

The list of programs subject to this sunset provision could also include

military retirement benefits, veterans programs, unemployment compensation, student loans, deposit insurance and more.

Shifting a great deal of the tax burden to the non-rich, while possibly eliminating massive programs that require a lot of taxation but help ordinary citizens, would be a massive giveaway to the rich -- yes, even the CEOs of "woke corporations."

Despite all the recent prattle about the transformation of the GOP into a "working-class party," a Who's Who of Republican swells is all for Scott plans, according to Breitbart.

Conservative leaders are rallying around National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Rick Scott’s (R-FL) “11-Point Plan to Rescue America.”

Eighty-eight conservative leaders from the Conservative Action Project signed a memo supporting Scott’s plan titled “Conservatives Applaud Sen. Rick Scott’s Plan to Rescue America.”

Signers of the memo include original Tea Party leaders Jenny Beth Martin and Judson Phillips; Reagan-era attorney general Ed Meese; Trumpists such as Matt Schlapp, Amy Kremer, and David Bossie; Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who was on the call when Donald Trump tried to persuade Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to throw out the state's election results; some veteran Religious Right God-botherers (Gary Bauer, Tim Wildmon); and dozens more.

We've been told many times lately that -- alas! -- "the party of Reagan has become the party of Trump." But a look at this signature list reminds us that there's continuity across the forty-plus years of Reaganite and post-Reaganite Republicanism. Even though it may suit their purposes on occasion to denounce capitalism as "woke," they still want the rich to get richer and they still want the non-rich to suffer.