The 2016 presidential election will soon be in full swing. Some of the potential candidates are already testing the waters and getting their houses in order.
As with most elections, some candidates will come right out in favor of big government. They will promote more government programs and increased spending for specific government programs. Others will try to walk a fine line, making big promises, but also saying they want fiscal responsibility.
Then there are the candidates who talk a good game about smaller government. They talk about individualism and needing more liberty and less government. Unfortunately, many of these candidates cannot be believed.
One potential presidential candidate is Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. He beat Charlie Crist in the Republican primary in the Florida Senate race. Rubio quickly gained favor with fiscal conservatives and the Tea Party and that is what ultimately drove Crist out of the Republican Party.
And while Rubio is probably good on fiscal issues when compared to Hillary Clinton, or even Mitt Romney, we shouldn’t be fooled that he is a pro-liberty candidate. He has taken some rather egregious positions for a pro-liberty person to stomach.
Foreign Policy
The biggest issue is foreign policy. If Rubio runs for president, this is the number one issue. The president has a greater effect on this issue than any other. The president has more power with this issue, whether justified or not.
The problem here is that Rubio is generally pro war. He gave a speech back in September that was indirectly going after Rand Paul. Rand Paul is far more hawkish than his father ever was. If Rubio is criticizing Rand Paul’s foreign policy – or worse, Barack Obama’s foreign policy – for being too soft, then this gives you a pretty good indication of where Rubio is coming from.
He is another Republican who refuses to criticize the Bush administration and anything about the Iraq War. If he has any criticisms of the Iraq War, it is that Obama has not been bold enough. The same goes for Afghanistan.
Again, foreign policy is really the number one issue for the president, and Rubio represents everything against the idea of liberty on this issue. He is an interventionist.
Trade with Cuba
Rubio says that other politicians wait for polls to come out and then make up their mind. But Rubio doesn’t need any polls on the issue of Cuba. He has a lot of constituents from Cuba and he himself is Cuban American. He is politically obligated to support the continuation of sanctions against Cuba.
Obama has come out in support of loosening trade restrictions with Cuba. But Rubio is completely against this idea. Who is in favor of free trade?
Trade sanctions obviously haven’t worked over the last 50 years. If trade is opened up, then Cubans living in Cuba will get a taste of America. They will want to increase their living standards. They will want more freedom for themselves.
The War on Drugs
Of course, like any good conservative, Marco Rubio supports the federal War on Drugs. He will talk about following the Constitution, yet fighting drugs is nowhere in the U.S. Constitution.
Rubio will talk about individualism and less government, but he does not believe people should be able to decide what to put in their own bodies. Even with marijuana, one of the most harmless drugs in existence, Rubio is against legalization.
In other words, he believes in individual liberty as long as it involves choices that he deems appropriate.
The NSA
When it comes to civil liberties, again, individual liberty doesn’t really count in the eyes of Marco Rubio. He believes that 9/11 changed everything, which apparently means that the Constitution or individual liberty should no longer matter – or at least be superseded by fighting terrorism.
Rubio said that since the threat of radical Islam will probably last the rest of our lifetimes, that we should expect a continuance of surveillance programs. We should expect the National Security Agency (NSA) to continue spying on Americans.
So Rubio will talk about limiting government in some areas, but apparently it is acceptable to him for the federal government to have virtually unchecked power in monitoring the personal communications of all people on the planet.
Fiscal Conservatism
While Rubio certainly talks a good game about being fiscally conservatism, and even had a half-decent record while in the Florida legislature (relatively speaking), we have to ask how he can even be fiscally conservative on a national level with all of the other positions he holds. He was against the so-called sequester and generally seems to favor increasing military spending.
As mentioned above, he favors the NSA and the War on Drugs. How are these things supposed to be funded? It takes money. He certainly doesn’t come out against the major entitlement programs of Social Security and Medicare.
Does Rubio think he is going to get a balanced budget by just cutting out food stamps for the poor? If he supports Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, all military and defense spending, and paying the interest on the debt, then that is over two-thirds of the federal budget right there. There is no possible way Rubio could come up with a balanced federal budget with all of the things he advocates.
It is easy to claim to be fiscally conservative and to want tax cuts and to want a balanced budget. But in order for that to mean anything, we need specifics.
Rubio, along with all other candidates claiming to want a balanced budget, need to offer specific cuts in government spending that will get us there. It can’t just be vague statements about trying to grow our way out of it. It is has to be large and significant cuts, including the elimination of many government departments.
When the 2016 elections come, don’t be fooled by rhetoric calling for smaller government. Look at all of the issues and look at the specifics. Once elected to office, most politicians go back on their promises of smaller government. No politician will ever deliver smaller government than what was promised.
