Marco Rubio - U.S. Senate - 2010

Poinciana, FL – Addressing the Solivita Republican Club today, U.S. Senate Republican Candidate Marco Rubio will outline a series of initiatives to cut the out-of-control spending in Washington. From a wasteful $800 billion-plus stimulus program to a health care law that the Congressional Budget Office projects could ultimately cost over $1 trillion, the Obama-Crist-Meek agenda has taken our country in the wrong direction and is placing an unsustainable debt burden on future generations. Rubio believes we must start taking simple steps today to confront our fiscal crisis.

As Florida’s next United States Senator, Rubio will work to freeze non-defense, non-veterans discretionary spending, end the permanent lease on life for government programs, ban earmarks, cut the size of government in Washington, cut the budgets for Congress and the White House, give the President the line-item veto, end the bailout fund and end the stimulus program. These steps are necessary but only the beginning.

Addressing the members of the Republican Club, Rubio will say, “The out-of-control spending in Washington is unsustainable. If we do not act by electing leaders we can trust to go to Washington and stand up against policies taking our country in the wrong direction, then we will leave future generations worse off than today. We need to take common-sense steps to begin to bring spending under control. Floridians can no longer afford those who would embrace big government programs that spend money we don’t have while not getting the results we all deserve.”

Marco Rubio’s Initiatives To Bring Out-Of-Control Spending Under Control:

• Freeze non-defense and non-veterans discretionary spending at pre-Obama levels and enforce our goals to cut spending and reduce the deficit by making automatic cuts if politicians won’t.

• End the permanent lease on life that government programs are given. Too often, Congress creates a spending program, increases its funding and never looks back to actually see if it is working. We should mandate that all discretionary spending programs end every 10 years after the Census unless Congress specifically votes to continue them.

• Ban earmarks as Senator Jim DeMint proposed in Congress this year. This could save $15-20 billion annually and stop Congress from using pork barrel projects to buy votes for things like the health care bill.

• Cut the size of government by instituting a civilian hiring freeze across the federal government. Every new bureaucrat in Washington means more tax money taken out of your pocket or more spending borrowed from investors overseas.

• Cut the budgets of Congress and the White House by 10%.  One of the first things Republicans did when they took over Congress in the 1990’s was reduce the number of committees, committee staff, and cut the Congressional budget.  We need to do it again, this time adding in the White House budget.

• Give the president the line-item veto pen.

• End the TARP bailout program and use the savings to pay down the debt. This administration is turning TARP into a permanent fund for their pet projects.

• End the wasteful stimulus program that has failed our country. Stimulus money that has not been spent should be used for something that will actually help the economy and create jobs, or be used to pay down the debt.