The Economist picks apart Rubio agenda

Check out this blog in The Economist on Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio's policy agenda. You know this is a smart magazine when it spells programs programmes. The magazine fails to acknowledge, however, that Rubio has said the government should consider raising the retirement age for Social Security benefits.

It's true that advancing policy proposals is more courageous than running on facile outrage: having an agenda courts the risk that people will take your agenda apart. Nonetheless, I don't find it convincing to praise Mr Rubio simply for having put forward an agenda. The problem remains that Mr Rubio suffers from a fundamental malady that afflicts the entire tea-party movement. Tea-partiers who believe that the federal government must dramatically cut its budget deficit remain resolutely unwilling to draw the inevitable conclusion: either taxes must go dramatically up, or major, popular federal programmes (defence, Social Security, Medicare) must be dramatically cut. One thing we should have learned from the 2000 elections, and the budgetary debacles that have followed, is that an unwillingness to make the numbers in your proposals add up is a character flaw of the first order.

Read the whole thing here.

Comments

[informed]

Thank you for giving us the intelligent Economist column, which very effectively points out that Rubio is clueless. I hope the Herald will contribute some cogent analysis of political proposals as pertinent as the Economist's. Maybe...possibly...

[True Blue]

Rubio is the velvet glove of the Teabaggers.

[Sick of Tea Baggers and Bush Puppets]

12:02 is spot-on. Rubio, like every tea-bagger, is clueless. The Economist's comparisons with 2000 are accurate as well, and Rubio IS backed by JEB of the Bush Crime Family. If we can't get rid of the gerrymandered districts and the Republicans remain in power for much longer, the Sunshine State will follow in the footsteps of bankrupt California.

[Bloggy Bayou]

Charlie Crist: Endorsed By The Teamsters! Now There is a Conservative Voice I Can Believe In!

http://www.practicalstate.com/?p=2168

Cheers

[dialectic]

Great Post!

[Independent voter]

Rubio=Palin

[adam]

Look, Marco has the guts to put together a principled agenda. Can that agenda be accomplished in one day, one term? No...but you have to start somewhere.

The federal deficit is out of control. Dramatic reductions in deficit have to occur if we want to continue to be the greatest country in the world. Something has to be done, spending decreased, revenues generated...but we can't expect it all to be done tomorrow.

I support Rubio's agenda, but its a long tough slog we have ahead of us. Our country needs people like Marco to work to get us headed in the right direction.

[South Florida Cuban]

Certainly Adam, what we really need is more of the same Tallahassee funny business from Speaker Rubio in Washington. Make no mistake, this is a partisan bulldog that will preach gridlock dripping in dogma for his own political ambitions.

[Bloggy Bayou]

This is Economic Insanity So Charlie Crist Supports It

http://www.practicalstate.com/?p=2208

Cheers