Marco Rubio is Confused.
In Senator Marco Rubo’s Establishment Republican Response (as opposed to the Batshit Crazy Teabagger Republican Response from Rand Paul), he made this basic Republican statement of principle:
More government isn’t going to help you get ahead. It’s going to hold you back. More government isn’t going to create more opportunities. It’s going to limit them.
He then followed that statement of Randian principle up with a little bit of his middle class Cubano life story, during which he said this:
I believe in federal financial aid. I couldn’t have gone to college without it.
Which is it?
Those two statements are in direct contradiction. Rubio is saying that without government Stafford Loans and Pell Grants, he could not have afforded college. And without a college degree, he most assuredly would not become a hotshot lawyer, then state lawmaker, then Speaker of the Florida House, and then a U.S. Senator and the 2016 presumptive Republican frontrunner of the moment. So, by definition and by Rubio’s own admission, government did help him get ahead, it did not hold him back, but pushed him forward with a helping hand, creating more opportunities for the young Rubio, rather than limiting them.
So we are left with two options which may not be mutually exclusive: 1) Rubio is a massive hypocrite who is trying to deny to others the opportunities he was given; and/or 2) his statement of principle is pure bullshit and not believed by anyone, anywhere.
It really is amazing that Rubio is being groomed as the GOP’s Obama in 2016, for he has massive liabilities that Hillary Clinton will gleefully exploit en route to a 45 state 20 point landslide. These same liabilitiesare what prevented him from being picked as Romney’s running mate in 2012.
Rubio charged more than $100,000 to state GOP credit cards, had racked up nearly $1 million in personal debt, and nearly had his home foreclosed on. No doubt that Rubio has plenty of assets (young, Latino, from Florida). But he also carries a lot of risk for the usually risk-averse Romney.
Suffice it to say, Marco Rubio is a crook. He stole from his own political party and supporters, and was fined by the Federal Election Commission last year because he collected over $200,000 in illegal political contributions during his campaign for Senate.
Rubio is just following in Paul Ryan’s footsteps. Government help for me, but not for thee.
The first part, “More government isn’t going to help you get ahead… blah blah blah…”
Is just empty incantation. It isn’t suppose to mean anything other than “I am saying Republican words now.” It isn’t grounded in reality and it really isn’t intended to be picked over anymore than the words to the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ are supposed to be picked over.
Kilgore Trout once remarked that when you take a look at it, our national anthem is gibberish sprinkled with question marks. Similarly, Republican-speak is gibberish sprinkled with panicky exclamation points.
If you are one of these anti-government wingnuts, this is what you hear:
Government spending that benefits *them* is just fine and magically does not count as spending.
Got that?
Kilgore Trout FTW!
Here’s the other potential Rubio liability — he is of Cuban descent. His family came here and went right to the front of the line for entry and citizenship, as Cubans do still. There is alot of resentment about this in some quarters of the Latino community. Meaning that the GOP still doesn’t have it’s racial politics right.
Cassandra: Except they don’t want to cut only programs for the poor. They’re happy to cut the same middle-class benefit programs they used to join the middle class, such as student loans and SS survivor benefits. I don’t know if this means they’re self-loathing or if they just don’t anyone else following them up the ladder of success.
They also came pre-Castro. Who’s to say Rubio’s family wasn’t a part of a Communist seeding operation to take over Florida after Cuba fell? I certainly won’t say that Marco Rubio is a plant, who’s parents came here, had him as an anchor baby, all a part of a secret plot to turn America into a Communist nation.
I think that the people who don’t mind cutting the middle class programs are the ones who don’t need them anymore — loans paid off, kids out of college, houses paid for — but they sure do show up at tea party events with signs saying Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare.
Compare him Rubio and That UN American JR. Senator from Texas and then watch Senator Warren at the banking hearings yesterday.It’s no contest she has more class and smarts then the two of them put together.
When you have a kid who doesn’t fit in, you buy him a certain brand of jeans. When your party doesn’t fit in with America’s future, you buy yourself a Hispanic.
Republicans always do this. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sarah Palin and Clarence Thomas.
Lets not forget medicare for his mother and father, too.