Senator Rick Scott, R-Fla., speaks during a news conference on spending, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Before backing down Friday, Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) suggested recategorizing Social Security as discretionary spending during an interview with Fox News Tuesday, which would give congress the ability to slash funding for the essential program.

Not even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supported Scott’s plan, and he has heavily criticized the Florida senator for his stance,.

”That’s not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott plan,” McConnell said on The Terry Meiners show last week.

This rift in the Republican party suggests many Republicans understand the unpopularity cutting programs like Social Security. Club for Growth came to Scott’s aid on the issue and bashed “establishment Republicans like McConnell.”

“Rick Scott is a proven conservative who has promoted economic growth and fought reckless spending in the U.S. Senate,” Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh said.

Club for Growth is a national organization that promotes many right-wing economic policies, including repealing Obamacare, lowering corporate tax rates, closing the Department of Education and “identifying programs that can be cut or privatized.” Rick Scott is one of the candidates Club for Growth has endorsed for reelection t the Senate in 2024.

A now-deleted article written by Club for Growth’s Andrew Roth in 2010 reveals that the far-reaching GOP backer has been trying to get politicians to openly pledge cuts or privatization reforms to Social Security for many years.

“Most conservatives candidates are running away from the Social Security issue,” Roth writes. “They’ve probably been told by establishment handlers to never defend ‘privatization’ or personal accounts. Baloney. Fiscal candidates should embrace it.”

Making these programs discretionary means allowing Congress to review the amount of money that goes into the programs every year, paving the way for a hypothetical Republican trifecta at the federal level to cut the programs. While Social Security does need reform to stop a reduction in benefits, GOP legislators have no interest in supporting the slew of bills proposed in recent years to address those future shortcomings. Instead, they are seemingly balking at the issue until the debt ceiling vote comes to a head, where the plan seems to be leverage voting on the debt ceiling in order to get cuts to Social Security.

Should Congress not pass an increase to the debt ceiling, the U.S. could default on its loans, likely plunging the global economy into a recession.

The Republican infighting on Social Security does not seem to faze Democratic leadership, as far-right economic Social Security reform has been shown to be extremely unpopular in the past.

Club for Growth was established in 1999 has been one of the largest financial backers for Republican candidates since its inception. The organization has been backing candidates who lean further right in recent years, with Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and Lauren Boebert being some of its largest beneficiaries according to research done by the Guardian.

Other Republicans like Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) have also floated their own ideas on cutting Social Security.