USA: In a speech expected to raise his profile as a possible presidential candidate, Senator Marco Rubio offers the Republican response following President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech

Record ID: 837914

  • Title: USA: In a speech expected to raise his profile as a possible presidential candidate, Senator Marco Rubio offers the Republican response following President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech
  • Date: 13th February 2013
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, DC, USA (RECENT) (REUTERS) GENERAL VIEW OF THE EXTERIOR OF THE U.S. CAPITOL
  • Embargoed: 28th February 2013 12:00
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  • Location: Usa
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  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAC5HJ1O3EOT8R6WYOINSU59YEL
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  • Story Text: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, seeking to help the Republican Party shed its image as a defender of the rich, stressed his working-class upbringing and the need to save social safety net programs during his response on Tuesday (February 12) to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.
    For Rubio, 41, the speech represented a potential star-making moment at a time when Republicans are desperate to reach out to the nation's fast-growing Latino population, which voted overwhelmingly for Obama and Democrats in the November elections.
    The first-term senator from Florida said during his remarks that a free economy helps people reach the middle class.

    "This opportunity - to make it to the middle class or beyond no matter where you start out in life - it isn't bestowed on us from Washington. It comes from a vibrant free economy where people can risk their own money to open a business," Rubio said
    "Presidents in both parties - from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan - have known that our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity. But President Obama? He believes it's the cause of our problems," he added.
    Rubio also stressed his modest upbringing as a son of Cuban immigrants.

    "I still live in the same working class neighbourhood I grew up in. My neighbours aren't millionaires. They're retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare," he said.
    Rubio added:
    "The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle class families. It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs. And it will hurt seniors because it does nothing to save Medicare and Social Security. So Mr. President, I don't oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbours."
    He said that economic growth was the only way to ensure growth in the middle class.

    "Economic growth is the best way to help the middle class. Unfortunately, our economy actually shrank during the last three months of 2012. But if we can get the economy to grow at just four percent a year, it would create millions of middle class jobs," Rubio said.
    The emphasis on Rubio's modest roots - his Cuban-born father and mother came to the United States in the 1950s and worked as a bartender and hotel maid, respectively - signaled that he and Republicans now are trying to relate to voters in a way that eluded Mitt Romney, the party's 2012 presidential nominee.
    Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who made a fortune at his private equity firm, was cast by Democrats as an out-of-touch elitist during the campaign. It was an image that lowered his ratings among voters and was fed by Romney's own comments that "47 percent" of Americans would never vote for him because they were dependent on government programs.
    Rubio said that economic growth would also depend on immigration reform.

    "We can also help our economy grow if we have a legal immigration system that allows us to attract and assimilate the world's best and brightest. We need a responsible, permanent solution to the problem of those who are here illegally. But first, we must follow through on the broken promises of the past to secure our borders and enforce our laws," he said.
    Romney's stance on immigration - he touted a "self-deportation" plan under which the government essentially would make things so miserable for illegal immigrants that they would leave the United States voluntarily - further battered Republicans' image among Latinos. In the Nov. 6 election, Latinos cast more than 70 percent of their votes for Obama.
    Since then, Republicans have scrambled to portray their party as more tolerant and more understanding of the concerns of Latinos and the middle class.
    A big part of that strategy has been to promote Rubio, a favourite of the conservative Tea Party movement who, at least when it comes to immigration, appears ready to buck the movement's no-compromises approach and work with Democrats on legislation.
    Rubio was in a bipartisan group of eight senators who have called for providing a path to U.S. citizenship for many of the 11 million foreigners who are living in this country illegally.
    That position is not particularly popular with many Republicans. But throughout the party, there also is a recognition that if Republicans do not improve their image among Latinos - starting by supporting an overhaul of immigration laws - more election losses could be likely.
    Rubio underscored Republicans' outreach effort by delivering a taped version of his speech in Spanish for Spanish-language television networks.
    In an attempt to blunt criticisms that Republicans want to balance budgets by gutting social safety net programs, Rubio noted that the Medicare healthcare program for the elderly and disabled would go "bankrupt" if left as is.
    The senator, who won election to the U.S. Congress in 2010 on a wave of Tea Party successes that stressed smaller government, said in his rebuttal to Obama that Medicare provided care for his father who ultimately died of cancer.

    "The biggest obstacles to balancing the budget are programs where spending is already locked in. One of these programs, Medicare, is especially important to me. It provided my father the care he needed to battle cancer and ultimately die with dignity. And it pays for the care my mother receives now. I would never support any changes to Medicare that would hurt seniors like my mother. But anyone who is in favour of leaving Medicare exactly the way it is right now, is in favour of bankrupting it," Rubio said.
    While trying to recast his party's image in more moderate terms, Rubio has racked up a voting record that is squarely conservative.
    On Tuesday, he voted against renewing the "Violence Against Women Act" that passed the Senate 78-22 with only Republicans in opposition.
    Rubio began the year as one of only eight senators opposing a "fiscal cliff" deal that raised taxes on those households with net incomes above $450,000. And last year, he joined other Republicans in slowing legislation to keep student loan interest rates low.
    Even with his conservative voting record, Rubio has managed to position himself as somewhat of a moderate in his home state of Florida. That could help him appeal to a broad range of voters if he decides to wage a national campaign for president in 2016.
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