[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 194 (Friday, December 16, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8706-S8708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CONFRONTING THE ISSUES

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I thank those who have listened to our e-
mails back in Florida that we just sent out alerting them I will be 
speaking on the Senate floor, maybe the last time I will speak this 
year.
  I want to take a few minutes to update everyone on what this first 
year in the Senate has been like. First of all, it has been a 
tremendous privilege and honor. There is not a day goes by that I do 
not come to this building early in the morning, when I can get to the 
gym--I probably should do that more than I do--and see this building 
lit up in the darkness. It takes my breath away that I actually get to 
work here in this building on behalf of the people of the State of 
Florida.
  I recognize what an honor and privilege it is to have this position, 
not just in this unique institution--which is different, perhaps, than 
any legislative body in all of history--but this Republic that stands 
out in the history of mankind. As Americans, we should always take a 
moment to recognize that in America, on this floor, we debate and 
sometimes solve issues other countries fight wars with each other 
about. That is a real blessing and a real opportunity to be an example 
for the world. I am grateful and feel blessed to be a part of it, and I 
thank the people of Florida for the opportunity to do it.
  I want to share two observations as this year comes to an end--and, 
hopefully, today or tomorrow, sometime this week, we will wrap up our 
work in this body for 2011--observations I have after my first year. I 
think I am 3 weeks from having been sworn in for the first time. There 
are a couple of things that concern me.
  First is a real lack of urgency. There are some major issues that 
confront America. These have to be confronted. We need look no further 
than Europe to see what our future holds, unfortunately, if some of the 
issues that now confront us are not confronted. That is not hyperbole, 
it is not partisanship, it is reality--it is math. This country borrows 
more money than it needs to or should. This is a country that is now 
spending more money than it takes in at an alarming pace, and there is 
no plan in place to prevent that.

  That is not a partisan observation; that is not a Republican concern 
or a Democratic concern; that is the concern of every person who is 
grounded in

[[Page S8707]]

reality, that we cannot continue doing what we are doing now.
  There are specific programs that are in trouble that we should be 
very concerned about. Medicare is one example. I have a very special 
place in my heart for Medicare. No. 1, there are a lot of people in 
Florida who are on Medicare; and, No. 2, in my own life, both in my 
father's illness last year before he passed away and this year when my 
mother suffered some setbacks in her health, I have seen firsthand how 
important Medicare is.
  There are two things that worry me about Medicare. The first is that 
it will not be there when my generation and future generations retire. 
The other is just as important: that somehow, if we fail to act in a 
timely manner, people like my mother, who are currently on Medicare, 
may at some point in their lifetime see their benefits change 
dramatically or see the program and quality of access decline.
  We need to do everything we can to save Medicare. We know for a fact, 
and no one can dispute, if we leave Medicare the way it is right now, 
that program is going to be in a lot of trouble. I hope there is a 
sense of urgency about that. Also, the fact that our economy is now 
smaller than our debt--$15 trillion is a lot of money we owe, that our 
children and our grandchildren will owe. That is a lot of money. That 
is a big deal. The national security threats we face are significant 
and have to be confronted.
  The sense that somehow the major issues can wait until another 
election or another moment concern me because these issues have a 
tendency to sneak up on us and a problem becomes a crisis. It is a lot 
harder to solve a crisis than it is to solve a problem, so I hope we 
have a sense of urgency with regard to these issues in the coming year.
  There is another issue I would like to talk about, which is a 
troubling emergence in the last year in politics. It is this rhetoric 
that, in my opinion, seeks to divide Americans against each other, 
basically pits Americans against each other.
  The way the rhetoric basically goes is, there is a reason there are 
Americans who are struggling, hurting; a reason that people have lost 
their jobs; that people are working twice as hard and are making half 
as much; that people have lost their homes, and people have graduated 
from college but cannot find a job. And there is a theme by some, 
including, frankly, many in our political leadership and from time to 
time even the White House, saying to people the reason they are doing 
worse is because there is a handful of people out there doing too well. 
The reason they have lost their jobs is because someone else is being 
too greedy. The reason they are losing their homes is because someone 
else owns too many homes. The reason they are making less money is 
because someone else is making too much money.
  I am troubled by that rhetoric that pits people against each other 
because the second part of that argument is give the government more 
power; give us, government, more power so we can step in and right this 
wrong, so we can take away from the people who have too much and give 
to the people who do not have enough.
  Let me tell you why I am troubled by that. The first reason I am 
troubled by that is because it is absolutely not the kind of country we 
have been for 220-some-odd years. It is not in our nature. Americans 
have never been a people to drive through a nice neighborhood and say: 
Oh, I hate the people who live in these nice houses. Americans are 
people who drive through a nice neighborhood and say: Congratulations 
on your nice house. Guess what. We will be joining you soon.
  We have never been people who go around and confront people or look 
at people who have been financially successful and say: We hate you. We 
envy you because of how well you are doing. Americans have celebrated 
their success, and they say: Guess what. We are going to be successful 
soon as well.
  I remember growing up, I always tell people I am a child of privilege 
because I have the privilege and the honor of being born in the 
greatest country in human history and of having a mother and a father 
who were married, loved each other and lived in our home. These are two 
of the most important benefits anyone could have. But my parents were 
working-class folks. My dad was a bartender for most of his life. My 
mom was a maid and cashier and stock clerk at K-Mart. We were not 
people of financial means in terms of significant financial wealth.
  I tell them I always had what I needed. I didn't always have what I 
wanted, but I always had what I needed. My parents always provided 
that. I don't remember them telling us or teaching us the only way we 
could be more successful was if other people were less successful. They 
never inculcated in us the belief that somehow in order for us to climb 
the ladder, other people had to come down from the ladder.
  On the contrary, they would hold up these examples of success to 
inspire in us the hope that someday we could be there as well--
financially, in our careers, what have you. We are people who have 
always celebrated other people's success so long as we always had the 
opportunity to meet that success ourselves. That is the American 
nature. That is the American character. That is what makes us different 
from the rest of the world.
  I am afraid we could lose that or are on the verge of losing that. I 
am concerned that there are those in America's political leadership who 
are advocating that we abandon that in favor of something else. I think 
it is wrong because it does not work. That thought process that somehow 
other people have to be worse off in order for us to be better off does 
not work. People get on boats, people jump fences to get away from that 
kind of thought process. People flee countries that do that because it 
does not work. It never has.
  It will not work here. The proof is in the numbers. Let's put aside 
partisan political rhetoric for a moment and look at the numbers. In 
January of 2009, when the President was sworn in, he inherited a very 
bad economy. He inherited a bad economy. He inherited an economy, for 
example, that had 12 million people out of a job, an economy where gas 
was $1.85 a gallon, where the debt was at $10.6 trillion, where we were 
39 million Americans living in poverty in January of 2009. He inherited 
a bad economy.
  But for the first years of his Presidency, at least one of the first 
2 years, he had 60 votes in the Senate which I quickly learned is the 
way everything seems to happen around here, by 60 votes. He had a 
majority in the House. He could have anything he wanted, and he said: 
This is what I want. This is what the President said: He wanted a 
stimulus package, and he got it. He wanted his health care package, and 
he got it. He wanted financial services reform, and he got it. So what 
happened? Let's look at the numbers.
  He became President, bad economy, got everything he wanted. What has 
happened since? Now there are 13.3 million people unemployed, gas is 
now at $3.27 a gallon on average, the debt is now up to $15 trillion, 
and people in poverty--39 million when he took office, 46 million 
people now.
  Put aside the partisan rhetoric for a moment--just the numbers. He 
became President, got everything he wanted, and everything got worse. 
Those are the facts.
  Is that because he is a bad person? Of course not. It is ridiculous. 
It is because his view of government and politics is wrong and those 
who share it are wrong. They are not un-American, they are not bad 
people, but the proof is it doesn't work. It has not worked anywhere 
else in the world to approach it this way, and it is not going to work 
here. I hope in this new year we will reverse course on these things 
and instead embrace and take up that which does work in America.

  What makes America become more prosperous? It is not that 
complicated. It is not Fortune 500 companies or big corporations. Every 
country in the world has rich people. Every country in the world has 
billionaires and millionaires. What makes us different is that here a 
worker can become an owner, an employee can become an employer. It 
happens all the time. You cannot walk two blocks anywhere in this 
country and not bump into somebody who didn't start a business out of 
the spare bedroom of their home, who didn't take their credit card or 
their lifesavings and risked it all behind a great idea and today 20 
people work for them. That is 20 families being fed, 20 families 
sending kids to college because somebody had the audacity to take

[[Page S8708]]

their lifesavings and pursue their dream. So they opened a business out 
of the spare bedroom of their home; they opened a business out of a 
corner in their garage; and nowadays you can start a business with a 
laptop and an empty table at a Starbucks, and it works. We have to get 
back to that.
  What stands in the way of that are three things, above everything 
else. The first is a Tax Code that is crazy. It is not complicated, it 
is not burdensome, it is crazy. It is the craziest thing you have ever 
seen in your life. First of all, it is full of loopholes and exemptions 
built in. That doesn't hurt the big guys. It doesn't hurt billionaires 
and millionaires and big corporations. These guys can handle this 
stuff. They may not like it, but they can hire lawyers, accountants, 
and lobbyists. They can figure this stuff out. You know who a 
complicated Tax Code kills? The guy or gal trying to start a business 
out of the spare bedroom of their home. We have to simplify our Tax 
Code. It has to be reformed. If there is stuff in it that is the result 
of good lobbying as opposed to good policy, take it out. I hope we will 
work on that. Everybody here says they are for tax reform, so do it. 
Let's have urgency. Let's have some urgency behind that.
  The second is regulations. Look, we need to have regulations. Here is 
a glass of water. I don't want this to have poison in it. I want our 
air to be clean. Government has a role to play in those things. Let me 
tell you what happens when regulations go too far, when they seem to 
exist only for the purpose of justifying the existence of a regulator. 
You don't hurt the guys who have made it; you don't hurt the big 
corporations or the billionaires. These guys can hire lawyers to deal 
with that stuff, and they can hire lobbyists to change all that stuff. 
It kills the people trying to start a business out of the spare bedroom 
of their home. So we have to simplify the regulatory system we have in 
this country as well.
  Finally, this debt. The debt is a problem. There is no plan in place 
to do anything about it. People are afraid, concerned, worried--and 
rightfully so--about investing money in an economy that doesn't have a 
plan to pay its bills. I hope we reverse course on all of these issues. 
If we do, it will lead to prosperity.
  Let me tell you what prosperity will lead to. It will lead to more 
jobs, more jobs will lead to more taxpayers, more taxpayers will lead 
to more revenue, and more revenue means we will have money to pay down 
our debt and do what government should do, such as our national 
defense, invest in infrastructure and in our people, and provide a 
safety net to help those who cannot help themselves.
  To do that, it all starts with embracing the fundamental principle of 
America's prosperity. We have never been a nation of haves and have-
nots. We are a nation of haves and soon-to-haves, of people who have 
made it and people who will make it. That is who we need to remain if 
we desire to provide our children with what we had, an American 
century, which is what the 21st century can be, should be, and will be. 
If in 2012 this body and our leadership reverse course from the 
direction we are headed, it will place us on a path that is true to our 
heritage as a people and embrace for our children and grandchildren a 
future they deserve, a prosperous and growing America where all things 
are possible, where anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything, where 
the son of a bartender and a maid can be a U.S. Senator, and where 
anyone watching, no matter where you start out in life, can accomplish 
and be anything you want to accomplish if you are willing to work hard, 
play by the rules and have the ability to do it.
  With that, I want to wish all of my colleagues and the people of 
Florida and the people of the United States a merry Christmas, a happy 
Hanukkah, and a happy New Year. May God always bless our country and 
may 2012 bring us the safety and prosperity for our Nation and for the 
world.
  I thank the Chair.
  I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in 
morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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