Fox Host Chris Wallace had a very hard question for Florida GOP Senator Rick Scott recently. If deficits and debt are so important to the American economy, why do Republicans support tax cuts for the wealthy that are not paid for by equal spending cuts?

When Scott expounded at length on Wallace’s show about inflation and deficits, Wallace cut him short. Noting that Scott had voted against the infrastructure bill on the basis of an increased deficit, he called out the hypocrisy:

Senator, you talk about living within your means, you talk about the debt, you talk about deficits. The Trump tax cuts which were passed in 2017, the year before you were elected to the Senate, is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office that it is going to increase the deficit by over $2 trillion over 11 years. So should the Trump tax cuts be repealed?

Scott had absolutely no answer for him, other than to repeat that he had no intention of raising anyone’s taxes. That, of course, is not what repealing tax cuts does. It simply puts taxes back at the level they were at before the economy-crippling cuts were passed.

Senator Scott went on and on about how his family struggled to put food on the table, and that the government should learn to “live within our means.” That’s a phrase commonly used by rich people to criticize the poor for their own economic situation, as though they’re going out and buying the newest iPhone instead of school clothes for their kids.

But that kind of rhetoric doesn’t apply to the federal government. Deficit spending can actually be used as a tool by the government to increase future revenue, something that buying perfume on a nearly-maxed-out credit card just can’t do.

The point is, Rick, that you can’t talk about saving money by not spending on infrastructure when you’re throwing it way by giving the ultra-wealthy a tax cut. There is no conversation about the deficit that can rightfully ignore not making the rich pay their fair share.

Watch their entire exchange here: