Rubio's Comments Are Anything But Patriotic and Stink of Hypocrisy

Marco Rubio may be beginning to believe the GOP hype-machine a little too much. It was one thing when the media gave him a pass and allowed him to reinvent himself as a member of the ”new guard“ and the ”Crown Prince of the Tea Party,“ despite his machine politics background. But as the first American-born generation of immigrants who found asylum here, telling Americans that our meager, depression-era social programs have made us lazy is over the top.

Rubio has called himself an example of the American Dream. I would say that he's an example of what is wrong with our Republic. The junior Senator from Florida's rise financially coincided with his ascent to the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives where he was a go-to guy first for Governor Jeb Bush, then for the growing cabal of GOP bigwigs who began to dislike the policies of Governor Crist. Once appointed Speaker, he took a high-paying job with a high-powered lobbying firm and lived a leveraged, debt-dependent lifestyle quite at odds with his spendthrift rhetoric.

Rubio has done all of the usual sleazy politician moves. He's misused his state GOP credit card for personal expenses. He set up a ”not-for-profit“ PAC that was ostensibly to raise money for other candidates, but according to the Miami Herald, he spent nearly every dime it took in on ”travel expenses“, and there were a few more miscues like taking donations before it was approved by the state and failing to disclose $34,000 in expenses.  

In fact, Rubio is so so completely typical of what Americans can expect from politicians in either party, that I'm still trying to figure out what's ”new“ about the guy other than he's a high-profile Latino in the GOP. To my eyes, he seems a career politician who has come up through the party machine and makes every effort to grab soundbites with rhetoric-laced, party-platform talking points that often contradict everything he stands for in his actual actions – no different than the rest, left or right side of the aisle.

But I have to say that there's something that stings a little when someone who has benefited so deeply from liberal, American post-war policy stands up and lectures us, blaming social safety nets as part of our problem today. Imagine the insult you would feel as a depression-era American having to hear that meager programs which you have paid into your whole life and politicians like him have raided their entire careers are really what's wrong with this country. Need we remind him that there are only 535 spots at the main trough in Washington and a few thousand more at the smaller ones. There's over 300 million of us and most have to work their fingers to the bone for low wages that have been flat when adjusted for inflation since 1970.

And why is it that Rubio and his cronies never bring up the fat federal pensions they're racking up while they are wagging their finger at hard-working Americans and telling them to make the sacrifices, so that the reckless spending and irresponsible raiding of the Social Security Trust can be balanced on their tired, aching, working-class backs instead of... God forbid... don't say it... revenue increases. I guess that would be class warfare, which he and his friends are quick to cry when someone like Warren Buffet suggests they pitch in and pay their fair share, but don't seem to mind employing while chastising the poorest and neediest people in our country for having ”weakened us as a people“ by embracing such safety nets.

Rubio told us this week that the government ”crowded out the institutions that did these things in our society“ and that it's ”no longer necessary to keep saving for security because that was the government's job.“ Can someone with a law degree really be that dumb? Does Senator Rubio not understand how many elderly Americans were living in undignified squalor prior to Social Security? Does he not realize what a remarkable success the program has been in terms of reducing poverty among seniors?

Rubio says they were ”destined to fail from the start.“ Does he lack the historical perspective or education to understand the 1983 changes to SSI that allowed the government to turn new dollars contributed into new dollars in debt? The Congressional Pension pays a FULL retirement after just five years! Does it not make every American’s blood boil that someone who will likely walk away with a near six-figure ”pension“ would make such remarks???

Furthermore, does it take an economist to point out that the majority of Americans don't earn enough to save for their security no matter how thrift they are, which was the entire reason for a collective social insurance program in the first place, or that if somehow the poorest people could ratchet back consumption even a bit, our leveraged, consumption-based economy would weaken even further. Does Senator Rubio not even understand our current economic slump and that right now it has NOTHING to do with debt and everything to do with a lack of spending, because too many people have NO JOB or NOTHING extra to spend?

It's a joke and it's a sad one at that. Senator Rubio, like just about every Democrat and Republican in Washington, is a shill. He's a well-dressed, highly paid used-car salesman selling talking points on Fox News, trying to convince struggling Americans to keep selling out their entitlements, their safety nets, their crumbs that fall off the table and in exchange he gets to continue to enjoy such perks. That a speech like that can pass without far more outrage is the most disappointing thing that I've seen in quite some time, in terms of the hope that people might wise up to what's going on.

related: Marco Rubio's personal finances clash with call for fiscal discipline