Tea Party Distances Self From Republican Party Stars

By MICHAEL J. MISHAK/Huffington Post

MIAMI -- This wasn't the revolution the tea party had in mind.

Four years ago, the movement and its potent mix of anger and populism persuaded thousands of costumed and sign-waving conservatives to protest the ballooning deficit and President Obama's health care law. It swept a crop of no-compromise lawmakers into Congress and governor's offices and transformed political up-and-comers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, into household names.

But as many tea party stars seek re-election next year and Rubio considers a 2016 presidential run, conservative activists are finding themselves at a crossroads. Many of their standard-bearers have embraced more moderate positions on bedrock issues such as immigration and health care, broadening their appeal in swing states but dampening grass-roots passion.

"They keep sticking their finger in the eyes of the guys who got them elected," said Ralph King, a co-founder of the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots. "A lot of people are feeling betrayed."

The tea party is a loosely knit web of activists, and some are hoping to rekindle the fire with 2014 primary challenges to wayward Republicans. But many more say they plan to sit out high-profile races in some important swing states next year, a move that GOP leaders fear could imperil the re-election prospects of former tea party luminaries, including the governors of Florida and Ohio.

"It changes the playing field for us," said Tom Gaitens, former Florida director of FreedomWorks, a political action committee that has spent millions of dollars to help tea party candidates. "The most powerful thing we have as a movement is our feet and our vote."

In the summer of 2009, tea party supporters stormed congressional town hall meetings, shouting down lawmakers who had voted for the bank bailout and the stimulus package. The movement's voice grew louder after Democrats passed the health care overhaul, and voters took their outrage to the polls in 2010. The tea party wave stunned Democrats and many moderate Republicans, sweeping the GOP into control of the House and changing the balance of power in many statehouses.

But not long after some tea party stars took office, political analysts said, they were forced to adapt to a changing landscape, particularly in states Obama won in 2012, and to the realities of governing.

The tea party also fell out of favor with many people. At its height after the 2010 elections, a CBS News poll found that 31 percent of those surveyed considered themselves tea party supporters. A May survey found just 24 percent identified with the movement.

Facing sagging approval ratings, tea party Republicans, some of whom were elected by slim margins, shifted tactics.

Fla. Gov. Rick Scott, a former health care company executive who won office by attacking the health law and calling for deep cuts to state spending, later endorsed the health law and signed one of the largest budgets in state history, complete with pay raises for teachers. Similarly, Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, and Rick Snyder, R-Mich., are battling their GOP-dominated legislatures to expand Medicaid, a big part of the health law.

Tea party supporters were most struck by Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. His personal story and unlikely rise to power made him perhaps the most prominent figure in the movement.

As a Senate candidate in 2010, he denounced as "amnesty" any plan that would offer a path to citizenship for those who were in the country illegally. Yet in recent months, he has emerged as a leader of a bipartisan Senate group that developed a plan that includes such a provision. The plan has been panned by conservatives but ultimately could bolster Rubio's standing with Hispanics, a growing demographic group that has voted overwhelmingly Democratic in recent years.

One sweltering July day, a half-dozen tea party protesters gathered under a tree in front of Rubio's Miami office, seeking shade as they denounced his support for an immigration overhaul. But the protest soon turned into more of a support group, with the four men and two women grousing to each other about how Rubio had turned into a "back-stabber," a "liar" and a "flip-flopper."

Juan Fiol, a real estate broker who organized the protest, kept looking at his phone, waiting for calls from fellow tea party supporters that never came.

"It was supposed to be a big event," he said as he waved a large "Don't Tread on Me" flag.

The movement's top strategists acknowledge the tea party is quieter today, by design. It has matured, they said, from a protest movement to a political movement. Large-scale rallies have given way to strategic letter-writing and phone-banking campaigns to push or oppose legislative agendas in Washington and state capitals. In Michigan and Ohio, for example, leaders have battled the implementation of the president's health law and the adoption of "Common Core" state school standards.

Local activists say they have focused largely on their own communities since Obama's re-election and the ideological drift of some tea party-backed politicians. Many are running for school boards, county commissions and city councils, focusing on issues such as unfunded pension liabilities and sewer system repairs.

"The positions that people are filling at the local levels are more important for the future of the movement and the future of the country," said Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, a national umbrella organization. "It's creating a farm team for the future."

The Republican establishment, however, is concerned about 2014. Party leaders worry about the GOP's most passionate advocates walking away, particularly those supporters angered by the Senate's immigration bill. In a nod to the tea party, business and conservative groups have launched ad campaigns recasting the bill as a national security measure.

The conservative American Action Network spent $750,000 on pro-reform commercials. One ad aimed at Florida voters called the legislation "the toughest border security plan ever passed by Congress" and urged viewers to thank Rubio for "keeping his promise and fighting to secure the border."

National tea party leaders hope to re-energize followers by focusing on two of the movement's chief targets: the Internal Revenue Service and the health law. They said the Obama administration had handed them a recruiting tool when it delayed the law's implementation and when the IRS singled out tea party groups and other conservative political organizations for special scrutiny.

"The very issues that brought us together in the first place are emerging as more center stage than they were in 2009 and 2010," said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks. "That animates the political conversation and mobilizes our grass roots going into the 2014 election."

Some Republicans are also moving to repair their relationships with the movement.

Rubio recently spoke to about 50 conservative activists and other lawmakers at a meeting of the Senate's tea party caucus. Organizers said he breezed past immigration, instead devoting much of his speech to repealing the health law.

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Marco Rubio To Introduce Abortion Bill In Senate: Report

By Mollie Reilly/Huffington Post

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will introduce a bill in the Senate banning abortions 20 weeks after conception, the Weekly Standard reported Tuesday.

According to the Weekly Standard report, Rubio will announce his sponsorship of the measure after Congress returns from the July 4 recess.

A similar measure was passed by the House last month in a 228 to 196 vote. However, the 20-week abortion ban is unlikely to gain traction in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The White House also threatened to veto the bill.

"Forty years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed a woman's constitutional right to privacy, including the right to choose," the administration said in a statement. "This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and shows contempt for women's health and rights, the role doctors play in their patients' health care decisions, and the Constitution."

Another 20-week abortion bill is currently under consideration in Texas, where a filibuster by Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis thrust the issue into the limelight last week.

Rubio, a freshman Senator who is considered a likely contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has previously been vocal about his pro-life stance.

"The people who are actually closed-minded in American politics are the people who love to preach about the certainty of science with regards to our climate but ignore the absolute fact that science has proven that life begins at conception," Rubio said during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, professing his belief in protecting life "at every stage of its development."

Earlier this year, the Senate rejected a budget amendment proposed by Rubio that would have imposed new penalties for abortions performed on minors outside of their home state.

"Under the Rubio amendment, a doctor and a grandmother would go to jail if the grandmother brought her grandchild across state lines, say, after she was raped," Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said of the measure.

How Marco Rubio’s Abrupt Change Of Heart Could Endanger Immigration Reform

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told a conservative radio host on Tuesday that he would vote against a bipartisan immigration reform bill he helped draft unless lawmakers approve an amendment that would limit the Department of Homeland Security’s discretion over border security and potentially lengthen undocumented immigrants’ path to citizenship. The admission comes just months after Rubio described the existing security provisions as “the toughest enforcement measures in the history of the United States” and the Senate Judiciary Committee added additional national security amendments to the legislation.

“Well, I think if those amendments don’t pass, then I think we’ve got a bill that isn’t going to become law, and I think we’re wasting our time,” Rubio told talker Hugh Hewitt, saying that he wouldn’t vote for the measure.

Rubio’s comments are a stark contrast from how he described the reform bill — crafted by a group of bipartisan senators — during his appearances on six Sunday talk shows in April and in countless interviews with conservative talk show hosts.

“[This bill] puts in place the toughest enforcement measures in the history of the United States, potentially in the world,” Rubio told Meet The Press on April 14. “This bill once introduced, as we’ve agreed to, I think, will show that a broad base of enforcement measures, unlike anything this country’s ever seen.”

Three months later, Rubio appears to support an amendment crafted by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) that would replace those measures with stricter requirements that could delay legal status for undocumented immigrants. Under Cornyn’s amendment, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Comptroller General must, among other requirements, certify that the government can monitor and control “every segment of the Southern border” before any immigrants in provisional status can file for lawful permanent residence. The current senate bill language says that immigrants can apply for lawful status after the secretary submits border security and a fencing strategies to Congress and insures that both are “substantially deployed and substantially operational.”

It also establishes and funds a “Southern Border Security Commission” to secure the border if DHS cannot reach the security goals in five years. Both approaches require the implementation of E-Verify, an employment verification system, and an entry-exit system.

In April, Rubio specifically defended the original bill from conservatives who argued that DHS has too much authority over border security. “If, in fact, [DHS] fails to reach out metric, then the homeland security will lose control of this issue and it will actually be turned over to a border commission made up of local officials from those states most impacted,” Rubio told Fox News Sunday. “They will have money set aside so they can solve it for those people themselves. So, we’re confident it’s achievable.”

Since those remarks, the Senate Judiciary Committee strengthened the security provisions of the bill. The Senators accepted an amendment from Sen. Chuck Grassey (R-IA) to apply border security strategies to all border sectors, required the government to acuqire and deploy watercraft to provide support for border related maritaime anti-crime activities, expanded background checks for refugees and asylees, and instituted a background check when immigrants in provisional status renew their status.

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

• By Alex Leary and Adam C. Smith/Tampa Bay Times

For a candidate promising to put America's fiscal house in order, Marco Rubio has a tough time keeping his own house tidy, plagued by questionable spending and sloppy accounting.

On the campaign trail, Rubio likes to say "politicians don't create jobs." But politics, directly and indirectly, has generated Rubio's sizeable income, even as he has accumulated substantial debt and saw one of his homes nearly go into foreclosure.

Florida's likely next U.S. senator has cut a complicated financial profile since he burst on the political scene more than a decade ago, fresh from law school.

"Now more than ever people are sympathetic to the financial troubles other people have," said Republican consultant Chris Ingram of Tampa. "But with Marco, it's greater than that. There seems to be a pattern of behavior in which he's not good at controlling his own money or the money of others."

Rubio, 39 and married with four children, dismisses as a distraction talk about his use of a Republican Party of Florida credit card for personal items as well as questions about his employment and mountain of personal debt, largely due to mortgages and student loans.

"Now these are important issues, and we should discuss them, but they can't be the only issues in this campaign," he said in a debate Tuesday, accusing his opponents, Democrat Kendrick Meek and independent Charlie Crist, of lacking concrete ideas on an array of issues.

But even as he pulls away in the race, buoyed by early support from tea party activists fed up with government spending, Rubio's financial dealings continue to draw attention for the contradictions they raise with his message.

Climb to top fueled by political funds

When Rubio joined the Florida House of Representatives in 2000, he did not own a home, had few possessions and made $72,000 as a lawyer.

But he had $30,000 in "assorted credit and retail debt" (as described on his financial disclosure form) and in 2001 listed $165,000 in loans from the University of Florida and University of Miami Law School.

As Rubio climbed the ranks, he began to use little-noticed political committees to fund his travel and other expenses and later had a Republican Party of Florida credit card.

What emerged, records show, is a pattern of blending personal and political spending. Over and over again Rubio proved sloppy, at best, in complying with disclosure requirements.

Virtually broke, the 31-year-old lawmaker began campaigning to be House speaker in 2003 and created a political committee — Floridians for Conservative Leadership — to help elect other Republican candidates and curry their support.

With his wife serving as treasurer, Rubio did not wait for the state to authorize the committee before accepting campaign donations.

The committee listed its address as Rubio's home, a modest place he and his wife bought in West Miami in 2002, but reported spending nearly $85,000 in office and operating costs and $65,000 for administrative costs.

Over 18 months, nearly $90,000 went for political consultants, $51,000 went for credit card payments and $4,000 went to other candidates. That's less than the $5,700 that went to his wife, Jeanette, much of it for "gas and meals.'' (Mrs. Rubio does not work and the couple file joint tax returns.)

Rubio reported raising more than $228,000 for that committee over 18 months, but he failed to disclose $34,000 in expenses as required by state law.

In four elections between 2000 and 2006, Rubio faced only token opposition. Yet he still spent nearly $670,000 in campaign funds for political consulting, television advertising and other expenses, including meals, travel and, in one case, $1,485 to the company leasing him a Jeep Cherokee. Rubio's campaign said it was justified because he drove it all over his district.

A second political committee created by Rubio in late 2003, Floridians for Conservative Leadership in Government, was to "educate the public about conservative leadership in government.'' The committee raised more than $386,000, much of it going to Rubio's political strategists and consultants.

Other expenses included $14,000 incorrectly listed as "courier services" that were in fact payments to Rubio's relatives who he said were helping with the committee's political activities.

In 2005, Rubio had access to a new source of campaign money: state GOP credit cards. He charged more than $100,000 from November 2006 to November 2008, much of it for travel expenses and meals.

Rubio has insisted that the vast majority of those charges were for GOP business, and he directly paid off any personal expenses, though after a St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald report, Rubio agreed to pay the party $2,400 for plane tickets he said he mistakenly double-billed.

He has refused to release his party credit card records from 2005 and 2006.

Rubio is adamant his use of the political committees and credit cards is above board and has denied reports that the IRS has opened an inquiry, part of a widening look at Republican lawmakers who had credit cards.

"I don't think it looks good to the public," said Ben Wilcox, a board member of Common Cause Florida, a government watchdog group. "It's kind of a slippery slope where people can try to justify just about anything."

Personal income grows with debt

As he accumulated power, Rubio's income also grew. The $72,000 he made as a lawyer in 2000 climbed to $92,000 in 2003 then rose dramatically to $270,000 a year later, when he locked down the race to become House speaker. During the time, he was employed by three separate law firms.

In 2005, Rubio got a $300,000 job with Broad and Cassel, a large Miami firm that had done millions of dollars of legal work for the Florida House.

Rubio said in an interview that his income growth is not unlike what any young lawyer would have experienced. And he suggested he could have earned much more if he were not in politics.

"I can't tell you what I'd be doing had I not run for office," he said. "I could have started a business or I could be a managing partner at a law firm."

By 2005, Rubio owned two homes in Miami and one in Tallahassee. The mortgages totaled over $794,000, records show.

In 2008, he abruptly amended his financial disclosure forms after reporters asked why he had not listed a $135,000 home-equity loan he secured on his current home, purchased in December 2005 for $550,000.

The loan came after a Miami bank, controlled by some of Rubio's political supporters, reappraised the home at $735,000 — only 37 days after it was purchased. Rubio denied favoritism and called the failure to disclose the loan an "oversight."

More housing trouble surfaced this year. The Tallahassee home, which he bought with fellow legislator David Rivera, nearly went into foreclosure before Rivera came up with $9,525 for missed payments and fees. Rubio said the delay was over a dispute with the mortgage company.

By the time he left office in 2008, Rubio had $903,000 in home, car and student loans. His net worth was a mere $8,332.

While he listed $165,000 in student loans in 2001, nearly a decade later he carries just over $100,000, according to his campaign. He has paid off his undergraduate loans.

Mortgages and student loans are ordinary burdens, Rubio readily points out. "These are the real world issues," he recently told the Miami Herald editorial board.

And he sought to draw a line between his campaign call for fiscal restraint and his own finances.

"I talk about fiscal conservatism in the context of government spending," he said. "It's not in the context of some ideological religious adherence to some rigid ideology. It is in the context of the fact that our government spends more money than it takes in and you cannot do that over a sustained period of time without bankrupting your country."

Opportunities arose after he left office, too

"Politicians don't create jobs," Rubio often says in his stump speech.

Politics, though, played a direct role in Rubio's finances after he left the House.

• He landed an unadvertised $69,000 teaching job at Florida International University when the school was slashing staff because of budget cuts. (His salary came out of privately raised funds.)

• Also in 2008, he got a job as a political analyst for the Spanish-language TV station Univision, which paid a second dividend: keeping his image in circulation as he pondered his next run for office.

• In June 2008, Rubio formed two businesses, his own law firm and Rubio Consulting, whose clients included Univision and Marin & Sons, a Miami consulting firm headed by a Tallahassee lobbyist. On his financial disclosure form, Rubio wrote "Marin & Sons retains Rubio Consulting to introduce their clients to potential business partners in the community. Rubio Consulting does not lobby before any governmental entity."

• He joined another consulting partnership called Florida Strategic Consultants that scored big contracts with Miami Children's and Jackson Memorial hospitals. Rubio said he was providing advice and access to a network of contacts he culled as House speaker. "I'm not a lobbyist," he insisted then. "It's not my forte."

Rubio's financial history has been a constant thread throughout the election as a source of attack ads from opponents Crist and Meek. But Rubio has only continued to climb in the polls.

If he wins Nov. 2, Rubio will put an exclamation point on a remarkable political rise and his youth could leave him on the scene for years. But he will have to largely give up his current work because of the full-time demands of office and to avoid conflicts of interest.

His new job would pay $174,000 a year.

Eight Reasons Why Marco Rubio Is Not ‘The Republican Savior’

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Since Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) abandoned his opposition to providing undocumented immigrants with a pathway to citizenship and embraced a bipartisan framework for comprehensive immigration, political pundits and Republican leaders have anointed the Florida Congressman the future of the GOP.

Consequently, the likely 2016 presidential candidate has become a media darling, appearing on conservative talk shows and mainstream outlets to tout his reform principles and convince skeptics of the wisdom of reforming the nation’s broken immigration system. The media idolization reached its zenith on the cover of this week’s issue of TIME magazine. The publication prominently features a picture of a defiant Rubio under the headline, “The Republican Savior: How Marco Rubio became the new voice of the GOP.”

But dig beyond Rubio’s newfound embrace of immigration reform, and you’ll find that the GOP’s future appears stuck in the past, as the great hope of the party still espouses many of the extreme policies voters rejected in November:

1. Refused to raise the debt ceiling. Rubio voted against the GOP’s compromise measure to temporarily suspend the debt limit through May 19 in order avoid defaulting on the national debt. In a statement posted on his website, Rubio insisted that he would hold the debt ceiling increase hostage “unless it is tied with measures to actually solve our debt problem through spending reforms.”

2. Co-sponsored and voted for a Balanced Budget Amendment. “Now more than ever, we need a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Rubio proclaimed in 2011. A Balanced Budget Amendment would force the government to slash spending during an economic downturn, driving up unemployment and making the downturn worse, in a vicious cycle. If the amendment were in place during the last financial crisis, unemployment would have doubled.

3. Signed the Norquist pledge. Rubio pledged to never raise taxes under any circumstances and even voted against the last-minute deal to avert the fiscal cliff, since the deal included $600 billion in revenue. “Thousands of small businesses, not just the wealthy, will now be forced to decide how they’ll pay this new tax,” Rubio noted in a statement.

4. Backed Florida’s voter purge. Rubio defended Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) attempted purge Democratic voters from the rolls, brushing off its disproportionate targeting of Latino voters. He also defended Florida’s decision to shorten its early voting period from two weeks to eight days by pointing to “the cost-benefit analysis.” After Election Day, several prominent Florida Republicans admitted that the election law changes were geared toward suppressing minority and Democratic votes and researchers found that long voting lines drove away at least 201,000 Florida voters.

5. Doesn’t believe in climate change. During a recent BuzzFeed interview, Rubio claimed has “seen reasonable debate” over whether humans are causing climate change. Scientists have long agreed that the debate is now over.

6. Opposed federal action to help prevent violence against women. Rubio voted against the motion to proceed to debate the Violence Against Women Act, noting that he disagrees with portions of the bill. Rubio claims he supports a scaled-back version of the legislation.

7. Believes employers should be able to deny birth control to their employees.Rubio co-sponsored a bill — along with Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) — that sought to nullify Obamacare’s requirement that employers provide contraception to their employees without additional co-pays by permitting businesses tovoluntarily opt out of offering birth control.

8. Recorded robo calls for anti-gay hate group. Rubio has previously boasted the endorsement of anti-gay hate groups like the Family Research Council and during the election recorded robocalls for the National Organization of Marriage urging Americans to deny equal rights to gays and lesbians. He recently wouldn’t take a position on legislation that would prohibit employers from firing employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identify andwouldn’t say “whether same-sex couples should receive protections under immigration law.”

Eight Senators Vote To Block Violence Against Women Act

By Annie-Rose Strasser/Think Progress

Eight Senators on Monday voted not to consider the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a bill that protects victims of domestic violence. The Senators who voted against moving to debate on the bill were: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Tim Scott (R-SC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Rand Paul (R-KY), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and James Risch (R-ID).

VAWA’s reauthorization has been caught up in partisan gridlock over added provisions that would protect undocumented immigrants, as well as LGBT and Native American victims of domestic violence. Congress failed to reauthorize the bill by the end of 2012, and the Senate is now considering the same legislation again, in its new legislative session.

All of the women in the Senate, with the exception of Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), co-sponsored the legislation.

Once Senators consent to take up the measure, it will be voted on in its entirety. It is expected to pass, but will face a tougher battle in the House

Marco Rubio’s PAC Spends Five Times More On Overhead Than Political Contributions

By Josh Israel/Think Progress

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’s leadership PAC, the Reclaim America PAC, boldly lists its motto as “electing conservatives to the United States Senate.” But despite raising more than $1.6 million in the 2012 cycle, less than five percent of that money went to other political candidates.

Rubio, elected to the Senate in 2010, registered his leadership PAC in August 2011. In a video announcing the committee, Rubio told supporters the it aimed to “help and assist like-minded candidates who want to come here and serve in the House, in the Senate, or maybe even in the White House to make a difference for America’s future.”

While his official Senate website biography boasts that he is “proud to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate where I’m working to fulfill my promise to restore fiscal discipline,” Rubio’s leadership PAC spending hardly seems disciplined. Out of $1,688,086 in receipts, Reclaim America reported spending over $370,000 on political consultants, more than $256,000 on fundraising expenses, and upwards of $450,000 on administrative overhead, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

That did not leave much for the PAC’s alleged purpose of electing more conservative Republicans: less than $78,000. This total just under $2,400 in independent expenditures, $15,000 sent to his party’s Senate campaign committee, money earmarked raised specifically for and transferred directly to other campaigns, and just five $2,500 donations to Senate candidates. While Senate Republicans had been expected to make gains in the 2012 elections, they ultimately lost two seats.

Watch Rubio’s solicit contributions for his leadership PAC:

(The National Journal has more here.)

BUSH ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO GONZALES SAYS MARCO RUBIO IS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE VICE-PRESIDENT

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a freshman senator with less experience in government than former half-term governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, is widely viewed as a possible running mate to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In an interview with CNN’s John King, however, one of President Bush’s top lieutenants threw cold water on this idea, saying Rubio is not qualified for the nation’s number two job. According to Gonzales, “Wisdom comes from experience. It comes from living. It comes from success. It comes from failure, and I just think that the country needs to have people in positions of leadership who have that level of experience that’s important to serve effectively as president and as vice-president.” Watch it:

Marco Rubio: Medicare, Social Security ‘Weakened Us As People,’ Made Us Lazy

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Potential vice president running mate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) dismissed the importance of programs like Medicare and Social Security during a speech at the Reagan Presidential Library this afternoon, arguing that the initiatives “weakened us as people”:

These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job.

Watch it:

Americans may have certainly taken care of each other in the absence of formalized access to affordable health care, but that support did little to drastically ameliorate the fears and anxieties of seniors. As Ted Marmor explains in The Politics of Medicare, “The biggest fears included not being able to pay for care and risking turning to children or siblings for help, or it meant relying on the charitable attitude of the doctor or hospital. Most profoundly, it was the sense that illness or injury — bad enough themselves — could be disastrous for family finances unless you were lucky enough to have retiree coverage from a union or government plan.”

Indeed, prior to Medicare’s enactment in 1965, “about one-half of America’s seniors did not have hospital insurance,” “more than one in four elderly were estimated to go without medical care due to cost concerns,” and one in three seniors were living in poverty. Today, nearly all seniors have access to affordable health care and only about 14 percent of seniors are below the poverty line.

Motor City Liberal Comment: Actually Marco telling Latinos to vote for a party that will take away their social safety nets harms them not make them stronger.

Republican Senators Defend Corporate Jet Tax Loophole

By Alex Seitz-Wald/Think Progress

President Obama’s call during a press conference yesterday to end a tax breaks for private jet owners has been met with derision and confusion by many the right, with most Republicans lawmakersdismissing it out of hand as just another tax hike. “Republicans weren’t having it,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

On MSNBC this afternoon, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) dismissed ending the tax break as just “code for much broader, large tax increases,” saying that the jet tax break is “not the issue we’re debating here.” Watch it:

Sen. Marco Rubo (R-FL) meanwhile, told the National Review that Obama was suggesting corporate jet owners earn too much money. “[D]on’t go around telling people that the reason you are not doing well is because some rich guy is in a corporate jet or some oil company ismaking too much money,” he said. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) spokesperson defended the tax break without really addressing the issue on its merits, quipping to reporters, “Interesting that he keeps pointing to corporate planes and oil/gas.”

Conservative media outlets took up the same line, dismissing Obama’s call as an empty “metaphor” and the “latest class warfare catchphrase.” The Wall Street Journal wrote a gleefully condescending blog post yesterday called, “Note To Obama: $250,000-a-Year Earners Can’t Afford Jets,” in which it sought to educate Obama about taxes. The only problem? The author assumed Obama was referring to the Bush cuts — he was not and the esteemed paper was forced to run a correction at the bottom of the story

But not only are Rubio, Crapo and the rest defending a tax loophole for the most fortunate Americans, they’re completely misunderstanding it. As hard as it to believe, the private jet tax break is no “metaphor” or “code” for people making too much money — it is an actual loophole in the tax code that applies to private jets and not commercial ones. The provision, created in 1987, allows corporate jets to be depreciated over a five-year period rather than the seven-year period required for commercial ones. It has been defended and supported by Republicans since.

The more sophisticated conservative defense of special tax breaks private corporate jets, advanced by the Hertiage Foundation, among others, is that it was created by the stimulus package. As ThinkProgress’ Matt Yglesias explained, this myth too is bunk.

While closing the loophole wouldn’t raise enough money to solve the deficit problem by any means, it points to the absurdity of much of the spending in the tax code and would surely be a step in the right direction. The conservative response to ending it, meanwhile, speaks to the priorities of their tax cut “theology” — fewer taxes for the wealthy above all else.

Rubio’s Spending Cuts Plan: End Tax Benefits For The Middle Class While Extending Them For The Rich

By Ben Armbruster Earlier this month, Florida GOP U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio unveiled his economic plan which is basically just a double-down on the Bush tax cuts with, as the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo noted, “an unspecified

corporate tax cut thrown on top for good measure.” How does Rubio plan to pay for all these tax cuts? His campaign “couldn’t give an answer.”

Today, Rubio laid out a new plan to cut spending — “12 Simple Ways To Cut Spending,” his campaign calls it. The plan contains many ideas that would do very little in terms of paying down the debt and reducing the deficit — including eliminating earmarks, reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy, and cutting Congressional and White House budgets. Others are outright gimmicks, such as allowing taxpayers to allocate taxes to the debt and calling for a balanced budget amendment.

But also, Rubio — like some of his colleagues on the right — wants to end the stimulus program:

• IDEA #4: End The Stimulus Program And Use The Savings To Cut The Debt. We must end the wasteful stimulus program that has failed to create jobs. Stimulus money that has not been spent should be used for something that will actually help the economy and create jobs, or to pay down the debt. Canceling unspent stimulus funds could save over $300 billion.

Of course, it’s simply not true that the Recovery Act has “failed to create jobs” as Rubio’s outline says. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently found that hte stimulus has created up to 2.8 million jobs and projects that nearly 4 million could be attributed to the Recovery Act by September.

Moreover, ending the stimulus would eliminate the remaining funds that are set aside for middle class tax cuts. The stimulus provides a tax cut to 95 percent of Americans and according to Recovery.gov, $55 billion remains to be spent on tax benefits. So, on the one hand, Rubio wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy at a cost of $700 billion and has no idea how to pay for it (thus increasing the debt and deficit), while on the other, he wants to repeal middle class tax to pay down the debt.

So how much money will Rubio’s new spending cuts plan actually save? The outline does not provide any figures and his campaign has not responded to an inquiry from ThinkProgress.