WHAT WOULD A RUBIO PRESIDENCY LOOK LIKE?

According to CNBC's Rachel Maddow last night, Rubio surged to 21% in a national poll taken after the Iowa caucuses, tying Cruz, as Trump (24%) has faded. Consequently, it is worth examining Rubio’s prescription for the country.

Basically his fiscal platform is Reaganomics on steroids (bullet points taken from Rubio’s website )  

1. Cut taxes mainly for the rich 

   1. Eliminate taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest

   2. Get rid of the death tax

   3. Reduce corporate taxes, as well as 

   4. Eliminate the 3 corporate taxes embedded in Obamacare

2. Hog-tie regulators in the areas of worker safety, environmental quality and consumer/investor protection

3. Boost military spending to support aggressive military action

4. Undermine labor unions

He also advocates repealing Obamacare and  “modernizing” Medicare, replacing them with a premium-support system, which would give seniors a generous but fixed amount with which to purchase health coverage, either from Medicare or a private provider. This is basically another device for funneling money to corporations. 

His policies are wildly inconsistent, on the one hand advocating tax cuts and increased military spending, while on the other advocating a Balanced Budget Amendment. 

There are only 5 ways to balance the budget: 

1. Raise taxes,

2. Reduce military spending

3. Reduce discretionary spending

4. Reduce Social Security and Medicare (so-called “entitlement”) spending. 

5. Sell government assets

Rubio wants to cut taxes and raise military spending, thereby aggravating the deficits. Selling government assets is not a viable solution. Therefore, according to Rubio’s plan, the entire burden of balancing the budget relies on reductions in discretionary and “entitlement” spending — basically undercutting government support for the poorest, most needy segment of the population while fattening the bank accounts of the wealthy, worsening the already intolerable inequality of wealth in America today.  

See also: http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Marco_Rubio.htm 

We have had 3 decades to observe the results of Reagan’s “voodoo economics”:

• Rising inequality of income and wealth as the rich enjoy virtually all the fruits of economic growth while the poor get poorer and the middle class marks time

• Financial Panic , economic collapse and high unemployment

• Widespread political discontent and upheaval

• Runaway federal budget deficits swelling the national debt to be passed on to younger generations, much of it owed to foreigners with corresponding loss of financial autonomy   

• Bloated military spending sustained by “perpetual war” — Reagan’s Cold War . G.H.W. Bush’s first Gulf War, Clinton’s war in the Balkans, G. W. Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq plus the “War on Terror,', Obama’s residue of Bush's wars. 

A Rubio administration with a Republican-dominated Congress would mean a continuation of Reaganomics and its associated inequitable distribution of wealth; financial and economic trauma, heightened polarization between classes, races and generations; perpetual war leading to escalating domestic and international terrorist violence and insecurity. In short, if elected, Rubio would do grave damage to the country.