Speaking of the braindead policies of the past …
by digby
I’m afraid that fresh, young face Marco Rubio is still a member of a party that hasn’t had a new idea since Ronald Reagan sold arms to Iran in exchange for hostages:
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio launched a Republican presidential campaign this week with a promise to reject “the leaders and ideas of the past.”
It was a not-so-subtle jab from a 43-year-old fresh-faced, senator at his likely 2016 competitors, Republican Jeb Bush and Democrat Hillary Clinton, whose families were cemented as political dynasties in the 1990s. A closer look at Rubio’s early priorities, however, suggests that many of his policy prescriptions were born in the same era he’s vowing to leave behind.
Moreover, he confused his opening argument by comparing today’s taxes and government spending to 1999, the year Bush took office as Florida governor and Bill Clinton was president.
A look at a few facts behind his rhetoric:
RUBIO: “Too many of our leaders and their ideas are stuck in the 20th century.”
THE FACTS: On foreign policy, taxes and government spending, many of Rubio’s policies are rooted in Republican positions from the 1990s or even earlier.
Foreign policy stands out in particular for Rubio, who embraces the same muscular approach that dominated the Reagan and last Bush administrations.
While some conservatives now favor a reduced international footprint, Rubio has shown an appetite for pre-emptive military action against the Islamic State group and has not ruled out ground forces. He has also become Congress’ leading opponent of Obama’s plans to normalize relations with Cuba. The senator said in a Tuesday interview that the United States should not open an embassy on the island and should continue its longstanding policy that has isolated Cuba since the early 1960s.
On spending, Rubio has repeatedly endorsed a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget. Republican calls for such an amendment persisted throughout the Clinton years in the late 1990s after being embraced by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
Rubio is also calling for sweeping changes to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security to control government spending. While the push for “premium supports” to control Medicare costs was born this century, pieces of Rubio’s plans to change Social Security are decades old. Specifically, he would repeal the “earnings test” for anyone who claims Social Security before full retirement age but keeps working.
The GOP’s 1992 platform outlined the same position. Rubio also wants to raise the retirement age, something George W. Bush suggested as a presidential candidate before the 2000 election.
This is kind of an unfair fact check. For Republicans these things are new ideas. Their old ideas (which they haven’t abandoned) are patriarchy, slavery and aristocracy. So let’s give them a teensy bit of credit for progress.
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