Monday, July 18, 2011

Marco Rubio's Wisdom

On CBS's Face the Nation, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) says this on the debt problem:

Well, certainly the debt limit is an issue but I think the bigger issue here is the debt and I think what troubles me, Bob, is that no one is focusing on the real problem here. The real-- the real problem here is not the debt limit, the real problem here is the debt and a lack of a credible plan to deal with the debt. And it’s not me saying, it is the rating houses are saying it. If you read the S&P report, they made it very clear that simply raising the debt limit is not enough it needs to be accompanied by some serious effort to credibly deal with the American’s debt problem. And if that is not what we do we’re going to have a big problem, perhaps bigger than anything the administration has been talking about.  
...I think everybody in Washington would like to see more revenues. The question is number one how do you get more revenues? And number two, what do you do with it? I think more revenue should come from economic growth. And I think it should come from that because I think it’s impossible for it to come from tax increases. None of the tax increases the President is proposing solves the problem. They don’t raise enough money. In fact, they make it worse. They kill jobs. And by the way, I don’t trust Washington, because they have shown time and again that any time they get their hands on more money, they don’t use it to pay or avoid debt, they use it to grow the government. So, that’s what I’m in favor of. I’m in favor of-- of more revenue that comes from economic growth, the creation of new jobs. And if you talk to job creators, not politicians, not presidents, you talk to job creators, they will tell you that what they are looking for is a fair and simpler tax code, so I do support tax reform and I think there is a lot of support for tax reform in Washington. And they are looking for some regulatory reform as well because they think these regulations that are being imposed make America a more unfriendly place to do business.
And this on entitlements:
I come from a state that has a massive number of retirees and I’ve stood before cameras like this and made it very clear that if we don’t do something to save Medicare and Social Security they will bankrupt themselves and bankrupt our country. That those-- those programs are unsustainable as they are currently structured, that we are going to lose those programs unless we do something to deal with it. I did that during the campaign and everybody told me I’d lost my mind in terms of talking about these issues. So I think as far as I am concerned and many like me, we have stepped up and talked about some of these issues that face America. I mean, senator, I’m sorry, Representative Ryan, Congressman Ryan has played a terrible political price early on this year for even offering a potential solution to some of these problems. 
...we don’t have to do anything for current beneficiaries, people like my mom or people near retirement. I do think we have to look at the retirement age. I do pe-- do think that people like me, I’m forty, just turn forty a month ago, people like me have to accept the fact that there will not be a Social Security for us, unless we are willing to retire a little bit later. That’s-- that’s-- and people in my generation are going to have to accept that. And I am open to other people’s suggestions. Absolutely, I’m open to people’s suggestions, because I want to save Social Security and I want to save Medicare. As far as our solutions are concerned to the overall problem I think a credible solution to our debt problem has to have two components. It has to have budgetary reforms, in essence a de-- decrease in spending, of at least four trillion dollars or more and it has to come with some sort of growth enhancers, something that helps grow our economy. You cannot get yourself out of this debt problem at nine percent unemployment with over twenty-four million Americans either unemployed or underemployed.

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