Sen. Marco Rubio on Tuesday is rolling out his own plan to thwart stock buybacks, aligning with Democratic rivals who have recently condemned corporate stock repurchases as a source of the widening gap between average Americans and the wealthy.

The Florida Republican and former presidential candidate, according to CNBC, would reduce the incentives for buybacks by eliminating the preferential tax treatment of such purchases, which would be taxed as dividends.

“We think there are perverse government incentives. It’s about creating the right incentives so that company’s want to invest [in their businesses],” a senior aide for Sen. Rubio told MarketWatch.

“He wants to encourage domestic investment and so we have a bill that would make full and immediate expensing permanent. The pay-for on that bill recognizes that share repurchases are tax-preferred over dividends, so we eliminate the advantage as a pay-for for full expensing,” the aide said.

The tax treatment for repurchases would be the same as the tax treatment for dividends so it would be taxed on the individual level.

The traditional criticism of share buybacks is that it is a way to enrich the wallets of CEOs and top-level executives because it can drive per-share gains of stock by reducing the outstanding float, while such practices take away from direct investments in the company and its workers. However, proponents say repurchases are a low-risk way of allocating capital for firms that are uncertain about the return on investment of higher wages and research and development, and therefore the best use of capital.

Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who was nominated by President Obama, on Tuesday said on CNBC that Rubio’s “idea is something I want to take a look at – that ought to get people’s attention in and of itself,” acknowledging that it was rare for him to agree with the GOP member.

Rubio’s move follows a New York Times op-ed from Sens. Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders who sought to limit buybacks by making them contingent on a company investing in its workers and communities first, “including things like paying all workers at least $15 an hour, providing seven days of paid sick leave, and offering decent pensions and more reliable health benefits.”

Related:The Sanders, Schumer buyback test would block almost all company stock repurchases

Limiting stock buybacks could remove a source of demand for shares on major benchmarks like the S&P 500 index SPX, +1.05% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. DJIA, +0.51% .

U.S. companies bought back a record $1 trillion in stocks in 2018, and that pace of share repurchases has only accelerated in the first weeks of 2019.