[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14276-14279]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            CONGRATULATING BOOKER T. WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL

  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak for 
a few moments this evening before the Senate adjourns its workday.
  I begin with a couple points of personal privilege. One is to 
congratulate a local high school in Miami, FL, by the name of Booker T. 
Washington. This is a school which has now won 29 consecutive games. 
They were the national champions last year in high school football, and 
I think they are headed to that again this year.
  But what really impresses me about this program is the work they do 
with these young men. These young men come from a very challenging part 
of Miami, of Overtown, and have really overcome tremendous obstacles in 
their personal lives to achieve both in the classroom and on the field.
  What I am most impressed about, as I tell Coach Harris every time I 
get to see him, is that it is not the kind of

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football players he has made them--because they are excellent--but the 
kind of young men they are becoming. I think they are worthy of 
congratulations.
  I was at their game on Friday against another very good team from 
South Florida, both ranked in the top 10 nationally in high school. I 
assure my colleagues from States such as California and Texas that 
while their football is good, our football is special.
  Enough bragging on them. They are a great team, and we are fortunate 
to be able to witness what they have been able to do over the last 
couple of years.


                       Remembering Steven Sotloff

  The second point, which is related to my comments here in a moment, 
is toward the family of Steven Sotloff, who lost his life tragically in 
the Middle East over the last few days. We are all familiar with that 
horrific tale.
  Steven actually lived in Miami, FL, with his family literally blocks 
away from where I go to church, literally blocks away from where I 
live. He was a member of our community.
  As I said last week at his memorial service, Steven had dedicated his 
life to revealing the suffering and the reality of what was happening 
in some of the most dangerous areas of the world. And while he lost his 
life tragically, I think it is both ironic and appropriate that in his 
last act, as he lost his life he revealed the true nature of what we 
confront in that part of the world and the true nature of the Islamic 
State, who they are, and what they are all about. This was a young man 
who, as I said, dedicated his life not just to journalism but to 
journalism in the most dangerous part of the world and in so doing was 
able to bring that reality to us even in the last moments of his life.


                        Constitutional Amendment

  Intriguing, of course, is the debate which has occurred here over the 
last couple of days on this very interesting political matter. There is 
a lot of hyperbole being thrown around about the influence money has on 
our political process. I have found there is plenty of money on both 
sides of every issue, and certainly all of my colleagues here, 
including those who support this amendment before us, have been the 
beneficiaries of vast amounts of campaign spending. In fact, as some of 
my colleagues pointed to earlier, the majority of the money being 
raised and spent in political campaigns, including from Wall Street, is 
on behalf of many of the same people who are now here condemning it. If 
in fact it is so unseemly, as they say, then perhaps they should take a 
unilateral pledge not to accept these sources of funds. Of course they 
won't, but it is an interesting dynamic at a time when our Nation faces 
so many struggles.


                          Economic Challenges

  What I hope and wish is that more time in this Chamber would be 
dedicated to the issues this country faces, the ones that threaten our 
status as a special and unique nation.
  When we look across the country today at the economic challenges our 
people are facing, they are pervasive and they are real. We see that 
the 21st century has brought extraordinary and rapid change to our 
lives. The economy that once produced millions of jobs which allowed 
people to make it to the middle class and achieve that American dream--
many of those jobs have been outsourced. They are automated. They have 
gone away.
  Millions of people who have worked their entire lives are now 
struggling to find a job that allows them to keep pace with the cost of 
living. People are stuck in low-wage jobs, and I will have more to say 
about that later this week. People are working for $9 or $10 an hour 
and cannot make ends meet, especially when the cost of living continues 
to rise in every facet of our lives.
  We have students who have gone to school, graduated with a degree, 
have done everything they were told they needed to do to succeed, and 
now cannot find a job with the degree they sought, but they potentially 
owe tens of thousands of dollars in student loans--an issue I am both 
sensitive to and familiar with because I myself owed well over 
$100,000, including on the day I swore into the Senate. This is a real 
strain on people.
  Whatever it may be, there are millions of Americans who are starting 
to doubt whether that fundamental promise of America--that if they work 
hard, they can get ahead and achieve happiness as they define it--is 
still true. We understand the reasons why, and this is something we 
need to address, and we address it by addressing the core challenges of 
our time, which are not the different issues I heard thrown around here 
today.
  The core challenges of our time are that, first and foremost, the 
nature of our economy has changed rapidly. America faces more global 
competition than ever for investment and for innovation. There are more 
countries than ever competing with us for investment and for 
innovation, and tragically we haven't kept pace with that change. We 
still have policies in this country deeply rooted in the last century, 
in an era that has come and gone. We continue to impose taxes and 
regulations and a national debt and a health care law and all sorts of 
other measures that put us at a competitive disadvantage.
  I wish the No. 1 priority of the Senate was to make America once 
again the single-best place in the world to invest and to innovate so 
we could create millions of higher paying 21st-century jobs.
  I wish that were our No. 1 priority, followed closely by our No. 2 
priority, which is equipping people with the skills they need for the 
jobs of the 21st century. It wasn't that long ago that someone could 
come to this country or grow up in this country, not have a lot of 
advanced education, and still make it to the middle class. My parents 
did it. They worked service sector jobs. My mother was a maid and a 
cashier at hotels, and my father was a banquet bartender. They never 
made a lot of money. Yet they achieved the American dream.
  The American dream has never been about how much money you make or 
how many things you own; it is about achieving happiness. For them, 
achieving happiness was giving us the chance to do all the things they 
never could, and they were able to do that in the 20th century in 
service sector jobs.
  That is still possible in America for many people, but it is 
increasingly more difficult. I wish we would address that because the 
reason it has become more difficult is because almost all the higher 
paying jobs of the 21st century require some sort of advanced skill 
acquisition, and millions of our people simply don't have it. The 
reason is because our educational system is not a 21st-century one. Why 
have we stigmatized vocational education in America? Why have we told 
people that if they want to be an electrician or a plumber or a 
truckdriver or a welder or any other number of vocational professions--
why have we stigmatized that when we know there are jobs available in 
those fields and we need people to fill them?
  The second issue is, what about the people trapped in those low-
paying jobs--the single mother who works as a home health aide for $10 
an hour, the receptionist at a law firm making $11 an hour, the people 
working in a fast food restaurant for $9 an hour? There is nothing 
wrong with those jobs, but I am sure that as time goes on they want 
more, and we have to equip them with the skills to be able to do more 
so that the home health aide can become an ultrasound technician or a 
dental hygienist not making $12 an hour but making $30 an hour, so that 
the young man who is on the unemployment line can become a welder or a 
building specialist or some other 21st-century career or profession 
that gives him the skills he needs for those better paying jobs. I wish 
we were focused on that.
  By the way, how about informing our college students about the true 
value of their degrees? In America--a free country--you can study 
anything you want, but before you borrow $50,000 to attain a major in 
Greek philosophy, you deserve to know that the market for Greek 
philosophers is tight and that it is going to be difficult to pay off 
that loan. I think every student in America who is taking out student 
loans has the right to know how much people make when they graduate 
from their school with that degree so they

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can make informed and educated decisions about whether they should 
borrow money to pay for the specific degree they seek.
  This is an important issue, and I wish that was our second top 
priority here, that we would focus more on how to help people trapped 
in low-paying jobs, how to help people who are struggling with the 
challenges of the 21st century, how to help these people acquire the 
skills they need for better paying jobs. We have seen virtually no 
conversations about those two issues here in the last few days.
  No wonder people are disgusted with Washington. We don't spend any 
time here talking about what they are worried about. We spend very 
little time talking about what they are concerned about. Our discourse 
in this body is so irrelevant to their daily lives that they have 
reason not just to be disgusted with politics but quite frankly to be 
tempted to give up on us and our ability to address any of these 
challenges.


                              World Events

  There is a third 21st-century challenge and one I hope to speak about 
in the moments I have remaining; that is, the reality that world events 
have an impact on us greater than ever before. I am not saying world 
events never used to matter. Of course they did. But we are 
increasingly members of a growing global economy, which means that 
today when there is instability on this planet, it isn't just our 
national security that is threatened, it is our economic security as 
well.
  We are 6 percent of the world's population. In order to achieve more 
prosperity, we have to sell more things to more people everywhere in 
the world. But that depends on peace and stability across the planet, 
and we can't have peace and stability when the world is in chaos. So I 
would say today that foreign relations and foreign policy matter more 
from an economic perspective than they ever have in the history of this 
Nation. I wish there were more focus in this body on what is happening 
all over the world because the world is in total chaos.
  In the Asia-Pacific region, China is undergoing a dramatic 
modernization of its military capabilities--increasingly challenging, 
for example, U.S. air power in the region and increasingly acting out 
on illegitimate territorial claims.
  In Latin America we have seen an erosion of democratic order, the 
rise of antidemocratic governments that threaten to erode almost two 
decades of democratic progress in the region.
  By the way, in this body we have endeavored to address one of those 
challenges in Venezuela--an outrage, a place full of corruption and 
human rights violations, an anti-American government that does 
everything possible to undermine us and our interests, not just the 
interests of their own people. We have been blocked in our efforts to 
address it because somehow the Venezuelan Government, acting through 
CITGO--a wholly owned company of the Venezuelan Government--got 
lobbyists to come here to the Senate and lobby for blockage and 
stoppage of a measure we were ready to pass by unanimous consent.
  So I come to the floor to ask the majority leader to please schedule 
a vote on these sanctions on Venezuela because it will pass 
overwhelmingly. Do not allow lobbyists for the Venezuelan Government to 
be able to come to Washington, DC, and impede action on this matter.
  In Europe we see chaos too. Russia has invaded Ukraine. Maybe they 
switched uniforms and have lied about it, but they have invaded 
Ukraine, and NATO has been helpless to do anything about it. I hope we 
will be more forceful in our response because the implications not just 
for that region but for the world are very significant.
  But the one I want to close on tonight is focused on--and this 
relates to Steven Sotloff, as discussed a moment ago--what is happening 
with ISIL.
  Tomorrow night I believe the President will give the most important 
address of his Presidency--perhaps the most important address of any 
Presidency in the last decade. Tomorrow night I hope he comes before 
the American people and explains to them what is truly at stake. I was 
about to say that I thought he should have done this weeks ago, maybe 
months ago, but I am glad he is doing this.
  I would ask my Republican colleagues--all of my colleagues--that at 
this time of such critical national security importance, we try as much 
as possible to rally behind our efforts to address this challenge 
because it is a real challenge. If and when this group comes after the 
United States, both around the world or here at home, they will not be 
coming after Republicans and they will not be coming after Democrats; 
they will be coming after Americans; the threat we face is real.
  We have a tradition in this government of rallying together and 
acting in a nonpartisan way when it comes to national security. That is 
not just something we do because it is polite; it is something we must 
do because unity is important in order to address these challenges.
  I have been critical of the President. I have been critical of the 
slow response. I think it is valid to point out the mistakes he has 
made so we can learn and so he can be held accountable. But I also 
think it is important to look forward at what we can do now.
  While I thought that what the President is about to do he should have 
done weeks and months ago, I am glad he is finally doing it. Tomorrow 
night's address to the Nation is an important one. I hope all Americans 
tune in.
  Here are the three points I hope the President will make: First, I 
hope he clearly outlines to our fellow Americans what is at stake here. 
ISIL is not just a collection of crazy terrorists. It is the single 
most dangerous terrorist challenge this Nation has ever faced. We faced 
some dangerous terrorists before. We are familiar with Al Qaeda and 
their capability. We are familiar with some of the nation-states we 
faced down in the past.
  This group is uniquely dangerous for a number of reasons. First, it 
is by far the best funded terrorist operation perhaps in all of human 
history. They are generating millions of dollars a day alone just from 
oil revenue. Second, they are replete with foreign fighters, including 
thousands of foreign fighters that have visa waiver passports from 
countries where all they have to do is buy a plane ticket to come to 
the United States. Among those, by the way, are Americans, including 
one who is from Florida who even came back to the United States for a 
number of weeks and then returned and conducted a suicide attack on 
behalf of this group.
  Last but not least, they control territory. We know that in order to 
carry out the 9/11 attacks Al Qaeda needed a safe haven in parts of 
Afghanistan. These folks in the Islamic State--these lunatics--control 
a vast space. Most of northern Syria and vast portions of Iraq are 
under their control. This makes this group very significant and 
dangerous with intentions not just on taking over Iraq but dominating 
the region, ultimately moving into Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and 
other places, and conducting attacks against the United States.
  It is simple. ISIL cannot fulfill its regional ambitions if it 
doesn't drive the United States out of the Middle East, and the only 
way they can draw us out of the Middle East is by terrorizing us out of 
the Middle East. To terrorize us they will have to conduct terrorist 
attacks against us both abroad and here in the homeland. Here we have 
the most well-funded, most capable terrorist group in modern history 
with a clear intention and desire to attack us in order to terrorize us 
out of the region. This is a very serious national security threat, and 
it is important for the President to clearly explain that to our fellow 
Americans.
  The second thing I hope we will do is outline a clear goal about what 
we intend to achieve and that goal should be unequivocal: the complete 
defeat and annihilation of ISIL. That goal is accomplished in three 
steps: first, by stopping their continued spread; second, by eroding 
their capability and control of territory; and ultimately by defeating 
them as an organization--by eliminating them as an organization.
  So after he has outlined who this group is and why it is in our 
national

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interest to defeat them and he has outlined his goal to defeat them, I 
hope the President will explain to the American people in as much 
detail as possible--and clearly there are things he cannot share for 
operational security purposes--but in as much detail as possible how he 
intends to defeat them.
  I think this is a multi-faceted process, but it should include the 
continued air strikes in northern Iraq. Air strikes are most successful 
when they are done in coordination with Kurds and Iraqi ground forces 
there on the ground now--by continuing to supply and equip the Kurds by 
giving them logistical support they need in order to take on the 
supplies and get them out to the troops by hopefully working with the 
new Iraqi government that was just formed to stand as a unified Iraqi 
government that is capable not just of supplying a government that 
unites all of the people of Iraq but also one that is capable of 
fielding security forces capable of conducting operations without 
dividing the country along the Shia and Sunni lines.
  We also need more cooperation from Arabs in the region because they 
are immediately threatened. They are coming after the Crown in Saudi 
Arabia; they are coming after the Crown in Jordan. They are eventually 
going to move into Lebanon as well. They pose a real and present threat 
to all the nations in this region and they must act. We need their 
cooperation both militarily and diplomatically but also by using the 
megaphone that the government and state-run media provides to 
stigmatize this group by revealing them for who they truly are. There 
should be nothing romantic about ISIL in the minds of any Arab, about 
joining their ranks or their efforts. We need the government's help in 
spreading that word and revealing that reality.
  By the way, we also need to work with them and other regional 
governments--especially the Turks--to help cut off ISIL's access to 
funds and to fighters. The Turks need to step up and do a better job of 
securing that border. Cutting off their funds requires us to go after 
their most significant source of funds and that is the refinery 
capacity in Syria. I will have more to say about that in a moment. We 
should target that because the black market sale of oil in Syria is the 
single and fastest growing source of revenue for ISIL, but it is also a 
fuel for their terrorist operations.
  But ultimately there is no way to defeat ISIL without defeating them 
in Syria. Someone is going to have to confront them in Syria and defeat 
them. It is my hope that it will be a combination of U.S. air power and 
qualified, well-equipped, well-trained competent moderate rebel forces 
within Syria, because here is the problem: If you eliminate ISIL but 
you don't have some sort of capable moderate group left behind, then 
all you are doing is replacing ISIL with al-Nusra or some other radical 
Islamic group on the ground there. So it is important that we do both.
  I know no one wants to get into another conflict. We have no choice. 
We are going to have to deal with ISIL. The choice is not whether we 
deal with them. The choice is do we deal with them now while they are 
still growing or do we deal with them later when they have grown and 
when they have controlled vast and larger territories than they do now, 
when they have more fighters and are better funded. That is the choice 
before us.
  I submit to you that I know of no medical condition that is easier to 
treat later rather than earlier. Every medical condition that I know--
ISIL has been compared to cancer--every cancer that I know is easier to 
treat if you catch it earlier rather than later. I would say this is 
true with this cancer, ISIL. If we deal with them sooner, it will not 
be costless or fast, but it will be easier to deal with them then, than 
if we wait until later. But to do so will ultimately require someone to 
confront them and defeat them within Syria itself, and defeating them 
in Syria alone is not enough. We have to ensure that there is some 
group there on the ground, some moderate rebel force that can take over 
not just from them but from the Assad regime.
  There is collusion between Assad and ISIL. The refineries that ISIL 
controls in Syria are former Assad refineries which he won't bomb 
because he hopes to take them one day intact so he can use them. There 
is collusion between them. If anybody has any illusions about who Assad 
really is, I hope the President will outline this for us tomorrow. It 
is important for us and for our future.
  I will make one more point about why this is the most important 
speech that the President will give. Because this threat will probably 
outlive his Presidency. We have to be prepared for the fact that ISIL 
may not be defeated in 24 months, that the next President of the United 
States and many of us--whether it is serving here, whether it is 
controlled by Republicans or Democrats--will have to remain committed 
to this goal, because this threat in all likelihood will outlive the 
Presidency of Barack Obama. It is important for him to put in place a 
clear goal and a plan that can survive his Presidency so that we can 
carry out this task. It is critical for our country.
  I wish the President the best on his address tomorrow, and I hope we 
can come together in a bipartisan way to confront and defeat this evil 
before it is too late.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.

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