Marco Rubio

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, this is a pretty straightforward amendment. It funds defense fully based on the Gates budget, which was the last defense budget that was put together based solely on the assessment of threats we face and the requisite military needs to deal with those threats. The national security of our country is the predominant obligation of the Federal branch of government. It is the one thing that only the Federal Government can do, and it is the first thing it is tasked with doing. If it cannot protect us from foreign threats and protect our national security, all the other issues we are contemplating become elementary. This is a critical component, given the fact that around the world today there is an increase in threats from radical jihadists and nonstate actors to rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, to massive military buildup on behalf of the Chinese and the Asia-Pacific region, to the challenges faced by NATO and our allies in Europe as Vladimir Putin tries to redraw the post-Soviet order in Europe. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this. It does, once again, put us at the Gates' budget number which was the last number we arrived at, that was presented to us, and that fully funds the needs of our military based truly on the threats of the modern era.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment to call up my amendments en bloc: amendments Nos. 781, 565, 562, 552, and 590.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I would like to speak to you about the loss of a remarkable young man who made a tremendous impact on my community. This week, the city of Miami lost a firefighter, a devoted husband, an expectant father, and a selfless public servant named Rafael Garcia when he died very suddenly from a brain tumor that was detected just days ago. Rafael, known as Ralf, was only 28 years old. He is remembered by the many who loved him as brilliant, driven, and selfless, and the all-too- brief record of his life confirms all three traits. He graduated salutatorian from Christopher Columbus High School in 2005. He chose to attend Florida International University to stay close to his family and the community he loved and went on to graduate summa cum laude as the only student in his class to have a perfect GPA. With Ralf's natural gifts, he could have chosen virtually any career path--including jobs that would have paid lucrative salaries and kept him far from danger--but instead he chose to apply his considerable talents to serving his neighbors as a firefighter and EMT. So after graduation, he worked as a math teacher while attending Coral Springs Fire Academy, from which he graduated first in his class. He was then so eager to get started that he camped outside for 3 days so he could be first to submit his application for an opening. After winning that position, he attended Miami Fire Academy, where he once again graduated first in his class and won the award of Outstanding Recruit. As a firefighter, Ralf was more than just a hero who rushed into infernos while others fled; he also served our community in smaller moments, protecting the little pieces of this country that make America home. It is firefighters like Ralf who place a rescued teddy bear in the arms of a scared child. It is firefighters like Ralf who extinguish a blaze before it destroys the business a man worked his whole life to build. It is firefighters like Ralf who save a young mother from the twisted steel of a car wreck. And it is firefighters like Ralf who help to provide my children--and all children--with the knowledge that they are safe and that should anything happen, there are men and women ready to blare sirens, stop traffic, and break down walls to get to them if that is what they have to do. Ralf is remembered as a ``firefighter's firefighter.'' Many children grow up dreaming of becoming firefighters, and many who achieve this dream aspire to be a firefighter like Ralf. His supervisor, Lieutenant Christopher Cope, told the Miami Herald he was ``one of those subordinates that you wish you could clone to staff your entire department.'' When his tumor was discovered earlier this month, Ralf was in the process of studying for his lieutenant's exam. Remarkably, with all of his responsibilities as a firefighter and soon-to-be father, Ralf also found time to touch lives in other ways. He spent any time he could spare tutoring high schoolers in Miami struggling with math and serving as a substitute teacher. His father tells of multiple parents who have reached out this week to express their gratitude for how Ralf helped their children achieve better test scores. But even with all of his service in life, perhaps the greatest demonstration we have of Rafael Garcia's character is the dignity, love, and selflessness he demonstrated in his final days. A surprise prognosis that would have left many of us bitter and defeated instead brought out what was best in him. Before he passed, his wife Maeghan wrote on Facebook of his final days when he resolved to donate his organs to others. She wrote, ``I truly believe that the only reason he is still holding on is because he knows he will continue to help others even after his passing. In true Ralf fashion, I can just imagine him not wanting to `be selfish' by letting go too soon. That was his nature,'' she wrote, ``always thinking of others first.'' Miami has lost an irreplaceable member of our community this week in Rafael Garcia, but I know his legacy will live on for many years in the lives of those he touched. Today, Jeanette and I hold in our prayers his wife Maeghan, his-soon-to-be-born son, who is due in May, and his parents, Juan and Patricia.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, let me begin by saying that I believe defense spending is the most important obligation of the Federal Government. That doesn't mean we throw money away or we put money in places where it doesn't belong or we fund projects that have no utility. But it does mean the most important thing the Federal Government does for America is to defend it. We have benefitted from the fact that for the last 100 years, America has had the most powerful military force on the planet. This is especially true since the end of the Second World War. There have been times in our history when we tried to save money by cutting back on defense spending, and each and every time, it has forced us to come back later and spend even more to make up for it. It is interesting to point out that in times in the past when we have taken a peace dividend--this idea that the world is no longer unstable or unsafe and we can now spend less on defense--each and every time, we have had to come back and make up for it later as a new threat emerged. I don't think we can make the argument that this is a time when the world is stable or peaceful. Yet this is a time of dramatic reductions in defense spending. During this administration, first came the defense cuts of $480 billion over 10 years. Adding insult to injury, by the way, was that the savings found in the defense budget were redirected to already bloated domestic programs. Secretary Gates wrote in his memoirs about the extent to which he was forced to cut costs, saying: ``[N]o other department had done anything comparable--even proportionally.'' This was then followed by tens of billions more in defense cuts each year through sequestration, which will add up to a total of a trillion dollars over the next decade, despite the warnings of three secretaries of defense and our entire military leadership. All in all, inflation-adjusted defense spending has declined 21 percent since 2010. Even if we discount the drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has still declined by a dangerous 12 percent. This is happening at the same time that China is undergoing the most expansive, most aggressive defense increase in modern history; at a time when Russia, despite being eviscerated by economic sanctions, has held their defense spending largely harmless; at a time when radical Islam around the world--both the rise of ISIS and the existence of Al Qaeda and other groups such as al-Nusra and the Khorasan group and others--poses an ongoing threat to the United States. This at a time when many of our potential adversaries and adversaries, such as North Korea and Iran, are developing long-range rocket capabilities that could reach the continental United States. This is the worst possible time to be reducing our defense spending, and yet that is what we are doing. We are setting ourselves up for danger. I would recognize that people who have worked hard on this budget have tried to find new ways to address this through contingency funding. I respect the work they have done, and ultimately that may be where we end up. But before we do, it is important for this body to have a serious debate about how we are underfunding defense spending in this country and the dangers it poses for our future. That is the purpose of this amendment. The purpose of this amendment is to replace the defense numbers in this budget with the projected fiscal year 2016 number from the fiscal 2012 Gates budget. This was the last defense budget, the Gates budget, that was put together solely on the assessment of the threats we face and the requisite military needs to deal with it. It is the budget that the bipartisan congressionally mandated National Defense Panel stated was the minimum required to reverse course and set the military on more stable footing. With that, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to enter into a colloquy with my colleague from Arkansas, Senator Cotton.

Mr. RUBIO. I would ask Senator Cotton, who has extensive experience both serving in uniform and here in the Senate as well as in the House, his views on the dangers this poses, the rates that we are reducing military spending, and what it means to the long-term security of the United States.

Mr. RUBIO. I would say there is not much to add to what the Senator from Arkansas has pointed out. As he well knows, the importance that we have made to the men and women of our armed services, that is, that we will never put them in a fair fight. It will always be an unfair fight to their advantage. They will be the best trained, best equipped, and best-taken-care of fighting men and women on the planet. We cannot keep that commitment if we continue to reduce spending on the military and on defense at the rate we are going today. I would add one more point, that is, that much of the world security today is based upon American military alliances that are built upon American military assurances, so, for example, in the Asia-Pacific region, where the Japanese, the South Koreans, and other allies in the region look to an American umbrella of defense to provide them certainty in the face of real risk, whether it is territorial claims made by China that are illegitimate, or the nuclear threat of North Korea. Why haven't the South Koreans developed their own nuclear weapons? Because they believe the United States will be there to help them defend themselves. Why have the Japanese never felt compelled to use their technological know-how to build a nuclear program? Because they believe the United States is their ally and will come to their collective self-defense. These countries do their own spending. The Japanese have a very capable military force and a great force multiplier in the region, despite not being called a military force. The South Koreans are a very impressive fighting force and have a very courageous history. But that American security alliance in the region is critical to the long-term stability and security of that region, a region where a lot of global growth is happening on the economic front, where 50, 60, 70 percent of global trade and commerce transits through the South and East China Seas. The U.S. Navy's presence in the region, along with our other branches, is critical for the defense of the region. The same is true with the NATO Alliance in Europe. It relies on American security guarantees. The same is true--if a terrible deal, God forbid, is arrived at by this administration with Iran, our partners and allies in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia and others, are going to look to the United States and say: Well, what are you going to do to help us be protected from an Iranian nuclear weapon, with the missiles they are able to acquire? So what is going to happen when they turn and we say to them: We are with you; we are going to be there; We are going to continue to work with you; we are going to continue to live up to our defense capabilities, but we do not have the capabilities to meet our obligations? In essence, you can talk pivoting to Asia, but you have to have something to pivot with. If we have eviscerated our military, we have eviscerated our naval capacity, if we are on pace, as we are now, to have the smallest Air Force and the smallest Navy we have had in a very long time, we can say whatever we want, but our allies will not believe us because we will not have the capabilities to meet it. The other challenge we have is when we talk about modernization, we are not talking about the Commander in Chief today. When we decide how much money we are going to spend on modernizing our military capabilities, what we are deciding is what are the technologies and tools that are going to be available to a future Commander in Chief in 5, 10, or 15 years. These innovative systems that we use today that have cut down on civilian casualties, that allow us to improve our targeting, our intelligence-gathering capabilities, that have made the United States the premier fighting force in all of human history--all of those things were developed a decade ago or longer, through years of experimentation and testing, through innovation. So if we cut back on that now, in 10 years a future Commander in Chief will be faced with a threat to our national security, and will not have the latest, greatest technology on the planet to address it. What about the asymmetrical capabilities that China and others are developing? Instead of trying to out-aircraft-carrier us, they build weapons to destroy aircraft carriers. As we try to adjust to that threat, what is going to happen in a few years if we do not keep pace? The absence of a long-range bomber, the need to replace an aging submarine fleet, a Navy that is headed for a catastrophic low number of ships, all of these things need to be confronted, not to mention the fact that we are not modernizing at an efficient and effective rate our nuclear arsenal, which is a key part of our deterrence, in a world where China, Russia, and others have significant stockpiles of weapons, particularly the Russians. All of those things are important. These are long-range, long-term decisions that will have an impact on a future Congress, on a future Commander in Chief, and on our children and grandchildren, who will be the ones who have to live in that world. I promise you that a world where America is no longer the most capable fighting force on the planet is a world that is more chaotic and less safe. I look forward to having a debate on this. I encourage my colleagues to rally around these numbers. This is what we should be funding defense at. As my colleague, the Senator from Arkansas, accurately pointed out, and I am honored to work with him on this, strategy should not be driven by defense spending, the defense spending should be driving the strategy. In essence, to put it succinctly, we should not have a strategy that is based on limited resources. We are going to have to do the best we can with limited resources. We should first outline a strategy. This is what the strategy should be for the future of our country to keep us safe. Then we should fund that strategy, not the other way around. That is not what we are doing now. We are setting a dangerous precedent. More importantly, we are putting at risk the national security of this country. Once you have made that decision, it is very difficult to reverse it in a timely way. We have learned this lesson the hard way multiple times in our history. I hope we do not have to it learn it again. I look forward to working with the Senator from Arkansas on this amendment, and with my colleagues. There is great respect for the work that has gone into this budget, and the work of many others who are equally committed to the national defense of our country. I acknowledge the hard work they have put into finding a solution to get more money into defense, but it is not enough. Everyone knows that. The sooner we deal with this, the safer our country is going to be. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment No. 423, as modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, let me begin by acknowledging the work the sponsors of the human trafficking bill are doing. Trafficking is a sanitized way to discuss this issue. It is actually slavery, and I am glad that term is finding its way into the lexicon of how this is discussed. It is not just the sex trafficking--sex slavery--it is also labor trafficking, which is a major problem in this country as well. I do hope we can find a way forward on this one. It is an extraordinarily important issue, one that has taken far too long to pay attention to. It is not something that happens just around the world, but it happens here closer than we think. Israel Mr. President, I want to talk about a separate topic today as well. It is one a lot of people have been reading about in the newspapers over the last 72 hours. As we all know, there was an election in Israel this week, and many people are wondering: What is this aftermath of the election we keep reading about, where there is this controversy and back and forth? Certainly some of that happened a few weeks ago, when the Prime Minister of Israel visited Washington and spoke before the Congress. People are wondering, what is it that is going on here and why is there so much controversy around all this? I want to take a moment to delve deeper into this, because this is important. First of all, to answer the fundamental question: Why should we care about what is happening with Israel, in Israel, and about Israel? There are two reasons I think we should care. The first is because Israel represents everything we want that region of the world to be. Israel is a democracy, as evidenced by the vibrant election process they just underwent. Israel is a free enterprise economy, a developed economy, that provides prosperity for its people and its partners in trade and commerce. And Israel is a strong American ally--a democracy, a free enterprise, and a strong American ally. Don't we wish the entire Middle East looked that way? Don't we wish we had more countries in the Middle East that looked like Israel--that were allies, that were democratic, and had a free and prosperous economy? How much better would the world be if the Middle East looked more like Israel and less like Iraq and Syria and other places look like at this moment? There is another reason why we should care about Israel. Israel is not just another country. It has a special and unique purpose. It was founded as a homeland for the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Second World War and of the Holocaust, where over 6 million human beings were slaughtered. It was founded on the promise that never again in the history of the world would there not be a place for the Jewish people to go and be safe. It is not just a nation, it is a nation with a special and unique purpose unlike any other nation in the world, and I for one am proud that the United States has stood with Israel for all these years, and I am proud that the American people on a bipartisan basis have stood behind the Jewish State of Israel for all of these years. So the security, safety, and future of Israel is in our national security interest, as well as a moral obligation of every Member of this body and us as a nation. What are the underpinnings of Israeli security? There are two things. First, the ability of Israel to defend itself; and the second, the reality that if Israel ever has to defend itself, the United States will be there to support them. There is little doubt about the first pillar of its security. As the Prime Minister reminded us: Unlike many other countries, Israel is not asking us to send American soldiers or aircraft to support them. They are willing to defend themselves. But the second pillar, about strong and unquestionable American support, is increasingly being questioned around the world. And there is good reason why. Let's begin with the aftermath of this recent election. As far as I know--maybe this has changed in the last few hours--after this election, the President has yet to call the Prime Minister. That is unlike, of course, the fact that in March of 2012, he was among the first to call and congratulate Putin in Moscow. Or that in June of 2012, he was among the first to call Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood when they won the Egyptian Presidency. Or that in November of 2012, he called to congratulate the top Chinese Communists on their new position--which, by the way, is not elected in the way you and I would consider there to be an election. Or the fact that in 2013, there was an historic phone call. They bragged about how he called the Iranian President and congratulated him on his election. And of course, in August of 2014, he called to congratulate Turkey's President Erdogan. And on and on. Time and again, this President has made a habit of quickly calling these leaders when they win. But as of 4:40 p.m. eastern time, as far as I know, that call has yet not been made. Thinking about all the things that have been going on with Israel, we would think he would be quick to make that call. It hasn't happened. Maybe it has already, but it certainly didn't happen fast enough. But where does this come from? Is this new? Is this something that just happened recently? It isn't. In fact, we can start to see the trends here pretty early. In October of 2008, then-Senator Obama told an audience in Cleveland: There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud [one of the political parties in Israel] approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel. Which is a silly comment to make, since at that time that party had been out of power. In January of 2009, the President, upon taking office, makes a quick phone call to the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas before he even phoned the Israeli Prime Minister. Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina quoted Obama as saying: This is my first phone call to a foreign leader, and I'm making it only hours after I took office. In July of 2009, the President hosted American Jewish leaders at the White House, and he reportedly told them that he sought to put ``daylight'' between America and Israel. Here is the quote that someone at that meeting says he made: ``For eight years [during the Bush administration] there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished,'' he declared. In September of 2009, in his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama devoted five paragraphs to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, during which he declared--to loud applause; by the way, in the United Nations, no surprise--``America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.'' He went on to draw a connection between rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with living conditions in Gaza. There was not a single unconditional criticism of Palestinian terrorism. In March of 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton berated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on a now infamous 45-minute call, telling him that Israel had ``harmed the bilateral relationship.'' By the way, the State Department triumphantly shared details of the call with the press. That same month, the Israeli Ambassador was dressed down at the State Department, and Mr. Obama's Middle East envoy canceled his trip to Israel, and the United States under his leadership joined the European condemnation of Israel. In May of 2011, the State Department issued a press release declaring that the Department's No. 2 official would be visiting ``Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank,'' as if Jerusalem was not part of Israel. So they left that separate. Later in the month, only hours before Mr. Netanyahu departed from Israel to Washington, Mr. Obama delivered his infamous Arab Spring speech, which focused on a demand that Israel return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders with land swaps. In November of 2011, an open microphone caught part of a private conversation with the President and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy said of the Israeli premier: I can't stand Netanyahu. He's a liar. But rather than defend Israel, the President piled on. He said: You're tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day. In February of 2012, at a conference in Tunis, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about Mr. Obama pandering to ``Zionist lobbies.'' She acknowledged that it was ``a fair question'' and went on to explain that during an election season ``there are comments made that certainly don't reflect our foreign policy.'' In 2014, during the Gaza conflict, the White House and the State Department criticized Israel for the deaths of Palestinians who were being used as human shields by Hamas. But far worse and far more suggestive of the President's true feelings was the White House's decision to try and use arms supplies as a pressure point against Israel. In October of 2014, an anonymous administration official called Prime Minister Netanyahu ``a chicken----'' I can't even finish it. That is what has happened up to this point. That is what has happened up to this point. What has happened now? An election just happened 2 days ago. The first thing the White House says is: You used a lot of divisive language in that election. That is saying a lot from someone who has been elected at least once, probably twice, on extremely divisive language. But what about when Iran had a fraudulent election in 2009 and the people of Iran took to the streets to protest in the famous Green Revolution? You know what the White House said? We are not going to comment on that election because we are not going to interfere in the sovereignty of Iran. They will comment on the elections of an ally, calling the rhetoric of the election divisive. But when an enemy--which is what Iran is--has a fraudulent election and kills people who protest against it, we can't comment. We can't comment because that would be infringing on their sovereignty. The other thing that has happened is the Prime Minister made a statement about how a two-state solution isn't possible given the current circumstances. What does the White House do? They jump up and say: Well, that means we may have to reconsider. We may have to go to the United Nations Security Council now and support a resolution, and that means not to use our veto authority to stop a resolution that calls on Israel to create a Palestinian State with 1967 borders. Why would the Prime Minister of Israel say that, by the way? He is right; the conditions don't exist. Do you want to know why the conditions don't exist? First of all, let's go through the history of peace negotiations. In 2000, at Camp David, Israel offered the Palestinian Authority nearly all of the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem, and Gaza. The Palestinians said no. In 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon. Do you know what that is today? That is a place where they launch rockets against Israel. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza. Do you know what that is today? A place where they launch rockets from against Israel. In 2008, Israel offered--again, to the Palestinian Authority--nearly all of the West Bank, nearly all of Judea and Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem. The Palestinian authority said no. What about the Palestinian record? Let's begin with the fact that according to many reports, about 6 percent of the Palestinian budget is diverted to pay the salary of prisoners. That means the salary of terrorists, of people who have blown up centers and killed civilians, including Americans. They are being paid salaries and benefits, including with money from donors, such as the United States, Great Britain, Norway, and Denmark. Here is another material on how the PA routinely depicts a world without Israel. This is from a Palestinian schoolbook: Palestine's war ended with a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history, when the Zionist gangs stole Palestine . . . and established the so-called State of Israel. Or what about this particularly horrific expression of ideology which appeared in a Palestinian Authority daily as far back as 1998: The difference between Hitler and [British Foreign Minister] Balfour was simple: the former [Hitler] did not have colonies to send the Jews to, so he destroyed them, whereas Balfour . . . [turned] Palestine into his colony and sent the Jews. Balfour is Hitler with colonies, while Hitler is Balfour without colonies. They both wanted to get rid of the Jews...Zionism was crucial to the defense of the West, [by] ridding Europe of the burden of the Jews. This is from a daily of the PA. These are the people with whom we are pressuring them to cut a peace deal. What about this? The Palestinian Authority has named numerous locations and events after Palestinian terrorists responsible for killing Israeli civilians. What about this? This opinion piece appeared in the New York Times in 2013: The Palestinian Authority's television and radio stations, public schools, summer camps, children's magazines and Web sites are being used to drive home four core messages. First, that the existence of a Jewish state . . . is illegitimate because there is no Jewish people and no Jewish history. . . . Second, that Jews and Zionists are horrible creatures that corrupt those in their vicinity. Third, that Palestinians must continue to struggle until the inevitable replacement of Israel by an Arab-Palestinian state. And fourth, that all forms of resistance are honorable and valid, even if some forms of violence are not always expedient. Instead of being schooled in the ``culture of peace,'' the next generation of Palestinians is being relentlessly fed a rhetorical diet that includes the idolization of terrorists, the demonization of Jews and the conviction that sooner or later Israel should cease to exist. These are the people with whom this President wants to put pressure on them to cut a peace deal. I think Netanyahu is right. The conditions do not exist for a peace deal with people who teach their children that killing Jews is a glorious thing. The conditions for peace do not exist with a people--with a government, I should say, not a people. The people are victims of this government, the Palestinian Authority--not to mention Hamas, which teaches people that killing Jews is a glorious thing, that there is no such thing as a Jewish people, that any methods of destroying them is valid, that pays them salaries and benefits. This President is making a historic mistake. Allies have differences. But for allies such as Israel, when you have a difference with them and it is public, it emboldens their enemies--to launch more rockets out of southern Lebanon and Gaza, to launch more terrorist attacks, to go to international forums and delegitimize Israel's right to exist. This is what they are doing. This is a historic and tragic mistake. Israel is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. If this were a Republican President doing these things, I would give the exact same speech. In fact, I would be even angrier. This is outrageous. It is irresponsible, and it is dangerous. It betrays the commitment this Nation has made to the right of a Jewish State to exist in peace. No people on earth want peace more than the people of Israel. No people have suffered more at the hands of this violence and this terrorism than the people of Israel. They need America's support unconditionally. If there are differences, they need to be dealt with privately as we do with other allies. More than anything else, they deserve to be treated with more respect, not less than the respect this President and this White House is giving the Supreme Leader of Iran. He would not dare say the things about the Supreme Leader of Iran now that he is saying about the Prime Minister of Israel because he wouldn't want to endanger his peace deal or his arms deal that he is working out with them. I hope he will reconsider. I hope the bipartisan nature of our support of Israel is reinvigorated. I hope that once again this body, this Congress, and this government will recommit themselves to this extraordinarily important relationship, because if America doesn't stand with Israel, who would we stand with? If Israel--a democracy, a strong American ally on the international stage--is not worthy of our unconditional support, then what ally of ours around the world can feel safe in their alliance with us? I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak as in morning business.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I want to speak about the ongoing crisis in Venezuela--something that doesn't capture a lot of attention in the headlines because we have situations going on in the Middle East, as we have seen the horrifying reality of what ISIS is doing, just this week kidnapping more Christians. As we look at that situation in the Middle East, we should remind ourselves that there is a sectarian component to this that extends beyond ISIS's desire to convert the entire region to their version of radical Sunni Islam, but it also includes driving out all the Christians from the Middle East, and that is why they are specifically being targeted for brutalization. We have seen it again this week, and our heart breaks; and it should move us to move even faster in our efforts to destroy them. We can do this. I also know the world's attention is being paid to Ukraine where a delicate ceasefire is being violated by Russians, both Russian regular troops, by the way, who make incursions into Ukraine to fight side by side with rebel forces against the central government of Kiev, but also the weaponry that they continue to harm them with and the heavy shelling that at times comes across the border from Russia into Ukraine. These are significant issues we are being confronted with, and I understand why our attention is being paid to these things. But there is something happening in our own hemisphere that is not getting our attention, and I hope to use a few moments on the floor of the Senate to call attention to it, and that is the horrifying human rights catastrophe of Venezuela. Venezuela is a rich country--rich in oil and rich in people. Its people are well-educated, hard-working, talented. It is the cradle of democracy in Latin America and in the Western Hemisphere; but over the last 3 years especially it has spiraled downward and out of control. A once rich and prosperous nation has shortages of everyday goods from toilet paper to soap, with people having to wait in long lines. There is no U.S. embargo in Venezuela. There are no economic sanctions on Venezuela that they can blame on us or anyone else. It is due simply and entirely to the mismanagement and incompetence of Nicolas Maduro, the clown who runs that country, and the thugs who surround him in his gangster-style government. Venezuela ostensibly portrays itself as a democracy but in reality it is not. The court system is completely controlled by the government of Maduro. The elections are constantly manipulated by Maduro. There is no freedom of the press. For example, the government gets unlimited hours to talk on television about whatever they want, and the opposition gets virtually none. Newspapers that oppose the government find that they cannot import newsprint--the actual paper--so they can't print. Other media outlets have been either bought or the owners have been forced out of the country and been bought and turned over to owners more friendly to the government. The point is Venezuela is not a democracy, or is a democracy in name only. Beyond that, it is a government that is losing control and for the first time a few weeks ago or months ago authorized the National Guard to use deadly force on protesters. So it should not surprise us that earlier this week a young man--a high school student--was shot and killed in one of those protests, and we should expect to see more of this in the days and weeks to come, unfortunately. I hope I am wrong and pray that I am wrong, but I believe that is where they are headed, because there is no way out of this mess for the government. In fact, their situation is so dire that one of the things that has allowed them to keep the elite on the side of Maduro is the gas subsidy. Gasoline is very cheap in Venezuela because it is subsidized by the government. I predict over the next few weeks or months the Venezuelan Government is going to have to go to the people and say we have to take away the subsidy. And when that happens, Maduro may lose the support that is even around him. That is why he is being so careful about announcing it, but they are going to have to do it. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And when they do, it could quickly spiral out of control as well. There are reports of coup attempts internally, with some of the military starting to bristle at the heavy-handedness of this government there, and that is something worth watching. The point is Venezuela is spiraling out of control. We need to pay attention to this because it is happening in our own hemisphere. It is happening in our own backyard. It has the ability and the potential not just to dramatically impact the people of Venezuela, but the countries of the region and even our own. I don't think enough attention is being paid to this, while every single day the brutality continues. I called attention to this for the first time last year in February when the first wave of protests happened. We worked diligently to try to achieve sanctions on the individuals responsible for these human rights violations. Thanks to my colleagues here who were able to pass a bill that authorized the administration to impose sanctions on individuals in Venezuela responsible for human rights violations. To date the administration has imposed visa bans on some of these individuals, but they have not taken the next step of economic sanctions on the people responsible for these human rights violations. A few weeks ago I wrote the President a letter asking him, please begin to use this tool against those who are violating the human rights of the people of Venezuela. He has yet to do so. So I once again renew that call: Please impose these sanctions on the human rights violators in Venezuela. I hope I can use these moments to describe to people what I am hearing from people inside Venezuela and the expat community in Florida. They feel as though no one is paying attention. They feel as though they have been abandoned. They feel as though they are alone. Every single day the news leads off with all these things happening around the world--and they are worried about these things, too--but they feel as though no one is speaking out for them. They feel abandoned by all the other nations in the region. Where are all the governments of the Western Hemisphere? Where are all the other countries that are neighbors to Venezuela? Where is the Organization of American States? What is the point of even having that organization if it can't serve as an institution and a forum for condemning this sort of activity? Where are all the democracies of Latin America and the Western Hemisphere? Why are they not speaking out and condemning what is happening here? It is interesting, we sent a couple of Guantanamo detainees to Uruguay and the Uruguayan Government says they are asylum seekers, that they are refugees--basically implying they are refugees to American oppression. They have no qualms whatsoever about speaking out against the United States for putting in jail enemy combatants and terrorists responsible for the murder of Americans, responsible for acts of terrorism, responsible for supporting the Taliban. They have no problem condemning us, claiming that the people we released to them--which we should never have done--are refugees and asylum seekers, but they are silent and say nothing when it comes to what is happening in Venezuela. The hypocrisy of it is unbelievable. I challenge the heads of state of the countries of Latin America to speak out. The only problem is they are going to turn back around and say, Where is your head of state? Why isn't your President speaking out about it? The answer is, I don't know. I am grateful that he signed that bill. It is time to put it in effect. It is time to begin to use the tools in those sanctions to go after these individuals, but I wish the White House and the President would more forcefully and more consistently speak out against these human rights violations that are occurring. When you think about it, why are the people of Venezuela feeling abandoned? They look to us. They see America as the beacon of hope. We are supposed to be the premier defender of human rights and freedom and democracy on the planet; and instead, from the White House and the President, there is silence. There is silence. We cannot lose that aspect of our foreign policy. I understand that reality has a significant role to play in foreign policy, the balancing of different considerations; but morality and human rights must always be a key cornerstone of where we stand on issues of global affairs. If we lose that, if we lose the moral authority of this Nation, we lose our standing as a beacon of hope and freedom to people all over the world. I know sometimes we read newspaper articles and these leaders criticize us. But I hope it is understood that although people may talk badly about America, even in places where there might be some resentment about America, at its core people admire America. They admire us because they know someone from there who came here and was able to achieve things they never could have done in their own homeland. They admire us because every time there is an earthquake, Americans are the first ones there. Every time there is a flood, Americans are the first ones to respond. Every time there is hunger or suffering, it is American charities and the American Government first on the scene. They remember that and they admire it and they admire us for it. They admire our freedoms. They admire our democracy. They admire the fact that I am able to stand here on the floor today and criticize the President of the United States and there isn't some police officer outside that door ready to handcuff me and take me to jail. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, just this week a member of their legislative branch was ousted. Do you know why they kicked him out? So he could lose his legislative immunity and they could arrest him. Two weeks ago armed agents stormed the office of a mayor, fired shots in the air to disperse crowds and arrested by force a member of the opposition party--a mayor. This is happening in our own hemisphere and this is happening in the 21st century. It was just two decades ago that the Western Hemisphere was full of dictators, rightwing and leftwing, strong men who controlled and oppressed their people. We paid a terrible price for that in this hemisphere and in this country. Then there was this opening of democratic progress in the region. Now it is starting to erode and we are standing by and saying nothing about it, as if it doesn't even exist. You see it eroding in Nicaragua where the Sandinistas are back in charge. They won an election and then they used that power to erode democracy. You see it in Bolivia, you see it in Ecuador. You even see hints of it in Argentina. And you really see it in Venezuela. By the way, let me point out one more thing. Today, even as I speak to you, Cuban agents are here negotiating. I say Cuban agents. They dress as diplomats and act as diplomats, but in fact they are spies. In fact, the chief negotiator for the Cubans in these talks they are having with the State Department, Josefina Vidal, was asked to leave this country with her husband because her husband was an intelligence officer and she is known to be one as well. But these Cuban spies are here to negotiate with the State Department. They send spies. We send diplomats. Let's not forget who has taught the Venezuelan Government these tactics of oppression, these violent tactics, these ways to crack down on society. Let's not forget who has coached them. Let's not forget there are thousands of Cuban agents working in the Government of Venezuela right now. Let's not forget there are thousands of Cuban agents infiltrated in the Armed Forces--not infiltrated, they are openly in the Armed Forces of Venezuela right now. Let's not forget that in Venezuela, Maduro, and before him Chavez, ousted the sovereignty of Venezuela to the Castros. Let's not forget who the source of all of this in Venezuela truly was--who coached them, who taught them, who supported them, who provided personnel for them to carry this out. It is Cuba, a nation that is a global sponsor of terrorism, because they harbor fugitives from American justice, because they helped North Korea evade U.N. sanctions openly and nothing happened. Now the State Department is thinking about removing them from the list of sponsors of terrorism--one concession after another. But, anyway, on the issue of Venezuela, I hope we will pay more attention to it, because there are people right now suffering--not just economically but politically and physically at the hands of a brutal regime. They are looking to America and its leaders to speak clearly that we are on their side, that we will speak out for them, that we will stand for them, and we will use the power of this government to go after and punish those who are committing these crimes against them. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess from 12:45 p.m. until 1:45 p.m.

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. RUBIO. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, this is an important nomination, at a time when this country faces very significant national security threats.

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, are we on the Carter nomination?

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President. I would like to touch on two topics. The first is that today the President has submitted a request for authorization for use of military force with regard to ISIL, or ISIS, as some call it. First, I think it is good news that the President has made that submission, and I think he is right when he says the country is stronger when both Congress and the President act together. I would say there is a pretty simple authorization he could ask for, and it would be one sentence, and that is, ``We authorize the President to defeat and destroy ISIL.'' And that is what I think we need to do. I look forward to reading through his submission. I understand it contains a time limitation. It does not contain geographic limitations. It contains some language that supposedly will make people feel more comfortable about the use of ground troops. An authorization to use force that has limitations built into it is really quite unprecedented. We did some research, and the Congressional Research Service said that there really were only two previous authorizations that have limited the President in terms of the use of force to be used or the duration of the conflict. One was in 1983 in Lebanon, and one was in 1993 in Somalia. Both of those were peacekeeping missions, so it made sense to limit the peacekeeping mission to use of force. But it appears that never before in certainly modern history has the Congress of the United States authorized the President to take on and defeat an enemy but has done so with limitations on the time or geography or anything of that nature. That is an important point for us to understand because under no circumstances can ISIL stay. What we need to be authorizing the President to do is to destroy them and to defeat them and allow the Commander in Chief--both the one we have now and the one who will follow--to put in place the military tactics necessary to destroy and defeat ISIS. It is important to point out that circumstances on the ground might rapidly change. They already have. For example, when this began--if you look back a year and a half ago, if I had stood on the floor and given a speech about defeating ISIL or ISIS, no one would have known what I was talking about because at the time most Americans and most Members of Congress had no idea what that was. That is how quickly this has developed into a threat. I would remind everyone that when they actually crossed over from Syria into Iraq, the President called them the JV team. Even today the facts on the ground continue to evolve very rapidly. For example, we now know through open source reports that ISIL has now established a presence in Derna, Libya, which gives them access to a port facility, and it is a completely uncontested space. There is no government shooting at them. There are no airstrikes. There is no one coming after them there. They can do whatever they want in Libya, and they are doing it. They are using it as a place to train, a place to recruit, a place to resupply, a place to raise money, and they have access to a port that allows them to bring all these things in. There have also been open source reports of groups in Afghanistan beginning to pledge allegiance to ISIS. In fact, in at least four different countries in north Africa, there are now groups who have pledged allegiance to ISIL. So while we continue to focus on the conflict with relation to Iraq and Syria, we cannot overlook the fact that they are sprouting affiliates throughout the entire region. I think that after the brutal murder of numerous Americans--we saw last week what happened to the Jordanian pilot--I don't have to spend much time convincing people how dangerous this group is. What we don't hear enough about is the atrocities being committed on a daily basis on the ground, what they are doing to the Sunni population, for example, of areas they have now conquered, the brutality, the way they enforce sharia law with brutal tactics, not to mention the brutal stories we have heard of women being sold off or given away as brides to ISIL fighters, children trafficked into slavery, entire populations slaughtered, and fighters who were captured and killed in mass killings. This is what this group envisions for the world. The goals of this group are not simply to govern what we knew once as Iraq or Syria or Libya or any other country; their ultimate goal is for the entire world--including where we stand today--to one day live under their mandate, under the rules they have established, under their radical version of Sunni Islam. You may say that is far-fetched, and it may be today, but that is their clear ambition--to spread their form of radical Islam everywhere and anywhere they can. They openly talk about this. This group needs to be defeated. I wish we had taken this group on earlier. I wish, in fact, that we had gotten involved in the conflict in Syria earlier and equipped moderate rebel elements, non-jihadist rebel elements on the ground so that they would have been the most powerful force there. The President failed to do that in a timely fashion, and as a result a vacuum was created, and that vacuum was filled by this group who has attracted foreign fighters from all over the world to join their ranks. Now we are dealing with this problem, but I would argue better late than never. Had we dealt with this a year and a half ago or 2 years ago, it wouldn't have been easy, but it would have been easier. But it is important to deal with it decisively now. We can debate the tactics, but it is the job of the Commander in Chief, in consultation with his military officials who surround him and advise him, to come up with the appropriate tactics to defeat the enemy. For our purposes--very straightforward--ISIL is the enemy. They need to be defeated, and we should authorize this President and future Presidents to do what they can and what they must to defeat ISIS and erase them from the equation. Venezuela Mr. President, I also wish to take a moment to talk a little bit about what is happening in Venezuela. Tomorrow, February 12, will mark the 1-year anniversary since students and others across Venezuela took to the streets in peaceful demonstrations and demanded a better government and a better future than the current one, which is corrupt and incompetent and provides no leadership to the country. Tomorrow also marks the 1-year anniversary since the Venezuelan Government, under Nicolas Maduro, responded with a violent crackdown that left dozens of people dead, thousands injured, and hundreds in jail as political prisoners. There have been at least 50 documented cases of torture by government forces on peaceful demonstrators, and more than 1,700 individuals await trial today in Venezuela before a judiciary that is completely controlled by Maduro's government. This includes Leopoldo Lopez, who has been languishing in the Ramo Verde prison for almost a year. In the year since the people took to the streets demanding more opportunity, accountability, and more freedom, the basic necessities have vanished from the shelves. It is one of the richest nations in the hemisphere, and its economy is in shambles. Venezuela is also plagued with one of the world's highest murder rates, rampant corruption related to state assets, a 57-percent inflation rate, a junk rating on the global bond market, and unprecedented scarcity of goods as basic as toilet paper. Lately, things have gotten so bad in Venezuela under Maduro that they are no longer just kidnapping people. As the Diario las Americas, which is a newspaper in Miami, reported earlier this week, people are now kidnapping dogs and other pets in Venezuela and holding them for ransom. That is how bad things have gotten. Why is this happening? Why has the cradle of Latin American independence--a country blessed with oil and energy wealth, with talented and hard-working people--become a failed state? For starters, because it is modeling its economy after Cuba, which itself is a failed state. Second, for years Venezuela has been in the grips of incompetent buffoons, one after another. First it was Hugo Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro. They have squandered the nation's riches. Third, the country is being run by corrupt individuals. Just last week reports came out alleging that the speaker of the national assembly, Diosdado Cabello, is himself a drug kingpin. Fourth, even with all the oil wealth Venezuela has squandered, it still possesses some of the largest oil reserves on the planet, but oil prices are dropping. In a country such as Venezuela where innovation and entrepreneurship are stifled, where wealth and power are concentrated in the government and its cronies, the entire economy is the oil industry. Ninety-six percent of Venezuela's export revenues come from oil. So I am proud that in December the Senate and the House passed and the President signed a bill that sanctions human rights violators in Venezuela. It mandates that their assets be frozen and visa restrictions be placed upon them if they are involved in human rights violations. That is going to be critical going forward. As things get worse, more people in Venezuela will take to the streets, and the national guard in the country--which is nothing but armed thugs working on behalf of the Maduro government--will be tempted to crack down on people violently. So our legislation would impose visa sanctions and asset sanctions on individuals responsible for these human rights violations. The good news is that the President has moved forward with some of these visa restrictions, and that is a very positive step. America should not be and cannot be a playground for Venezuela's human rights violators. But the financial sanctions part of the bill are long overdue. They are urgently needed because things are only going to get worse in Venezuela. People are only going to get more desperate. They are only going to speak out more. They are only going to demand freedom more. And I suspect, although I hope I am wrong, that the response from the Venezuelan Government will be more violence and more crackdowns on the people of their own nation. If, God forbid, they use lethal force against their own people--which is a right they have reserved for themselves, a right the government has approved and has given authority to the national guard to use--we cannot simply stand by and watch as innocent people are killed or injured because the regime believes there will be no consequences. So today I wanted to come here for a few moments and urge the President to do what I asked him to do in a letter last week, and that is to not sit idly by on the Venezuelan sanction law he signed last year but to use it--to use it immediately and decisively to make clear that the United States of America will not stand for repression taking place in Venezuela and that we will use the tools of our economy and the power we have given the President to punish those responsible for committing human rights violations in Venezuela against the people of that great nation. Thank you, Mr. President. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, due to previous commitments in Florida today, I was unable to cast the following four votes: Motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy to be U.S. Surgeon General, as well as a final vote to confirm him. On both occasions, I would have voted no. I oppose Dr. Murthy's nomination because he has never served in the uniformed services, and one of the primary duties of the Surgeon General is to command the entire Commissioned Corps of uniformed public health officers. I am opposed to his advocacy efforts to weaken the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans as enshrined in the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution; Motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Daniel Santos to be a Member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. I would have voted no; and Motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Frank A. Rose to be an Assistant Secretary of State. I would have voted no.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity to speak on the floor tonight. People watching at home--to the extent there is anyone watching at home tonight--but to those who have gathered here and are still in the gallery watching the Senate, the Senate is debating a budget. It is a massive budget. It is the largest in the world in terms of any entity--I was about to say any government but of any entity on the planet. As of right now, if that budget is not passed I believe by tomorrow night, the Federal Government will not have authority to keep operating beyond the bare minimum. That is what the debate is about that you are watching. We will see what is going to happen over the next few hours in terms of ultimately getting a vote and what the leaders of the respective parties have agreed on. But what I wanted to talk about is related to the budget but goes much deeper than that; that is, the state of America and the state of our economy. Last night I had the opportunity to come here and speak a little bit about foreign relations and an international situation we were facing. But I wanted to speak for a moment because that is what the budget is about--it is about our domestic affairs. I think the budget is a reflection of that. You have heard a lot of different speeches here tonight--to the extent you are watching--about different things that are happening in our country. The Senator from Alabama spoke a moment ago about immigration, but in talking about immigration, he talked about the constraints that are upon the middle class. Before that, we have seen others speak about issues. So at the end of the day, as we talk about the budget, increasingly the debate is through the lens of those factors that people are facing in their daily lives throughout this country. I always tell the story of my parents because, for me, it puts a different framework to my vision of this country. My parents were very poor. They grew up in another country. My father lost his mother when he was 9 years old. He had to go to work literally the next day. He would work for the next 70 years in Havana, Cuba. My mother was one of seven girls who remembers that she never went hungry, but she is pretty sure her parents did so that their children would have enough to eat. She was raised by her father, my grandfather, who was disabled as a young man. He had polio and struggled his whole life to provide for his girls. They came to America in 1956 in search of a better life. They came here with nothing more than the dream of a better life and the hope of a better life. They did not know anyone. They barely had any money. They barely had any formal education. They arrived in this country in 1956. They never made a lot of money here. My father ended up settling into a job as a bartender, at a hotel primarily. My mother was a cashier. She was a stock clerk at Kmart. She worked as a maid at a casino in Las Vegas. My parents never became rich, but my parents achieved the American dream because the American dream is never about how much money you make. The American dream has always been about achieving happiness as you define it. And while they weren't rich, my parents were able to afford and own a home in a safe neighborhood--a neighborhood safe enough that they would allow us, my sister and me, to walk to school when we lived in Las Vegas. My parents were able to retire with dignity. My parents--just a generation removed from poverty and a lack of any formal education-- lived to see all four of their children go to college and have a life much better than their own. They fully lived the American dream. It is the American dream that has been possible because this Nation was founded on the powerful idea that all people are created equal and that all people deserve an equal opportunity to achieve happiness as they define it. That American dream isn't just a talking point. It defines us as a nation and as a people. It makes us different, special, and, in my opinion, better than any other nation that has ever existed. But today something that troubles us is that American dream seems to be eroding in the minds of way too many people, and we understand why. There are people, when they open the newspaper every day and they read--today is a perfect example. The Dow Jones closed over 300 points. Wall Street is setting record profits. They keep reading about how the economy is rebounding and unemployment is down, but they don't feel any of this. They are working as hard as they ever have, but their paychecks haven't gone up in more than a decade. In the meantime, everything in life costs more. Think about that. You are working hard, making less than ever relative to how much things cost, and you are frustrated to read that all these other people seem to be doing so great. Everybody keeps telling you about how the economy is doing fantastically, and meanwhile you are being squeezed in your own life. You can't get a pay raise, there is nothing you can do about it, and everything costs more: your rent payment, your health care, your children's education. This squeeze is real and the middle class is feeling it. We ask ourselves, but why is this happening? This is not just because of a downturn. We had a very serious financial crisis in this country. We had a very serious downturn. But what I describe to you is not just a feature of that, because if this were just a cyclical downturn, it would go up, down, and back up again. We have had a very dramatic change in the structure of our economy. Our policies have not reacted to that, have not changed with those structural changes that have happened in our economy. Even in this debate about the budget, you will see evidence of that. I didn't come to the floor to be critical of people who worked on it, I know they have worked hard, but our policies do not reflect these structural changes. They are very real. In the 20th century, practically anybody who wanted a job in America could find one. There were plenty of blue-collar jobs for people such as my parents and there seemed to be plenty of white-collar jobs for people such as their children. But in the 21st century many of those jobs are gone. They have been sent overseas or they have been replaced because of technology or innovation. New jobs have been created, but they require skills that too many of our people still don't have. In the 20th century, ours was a national economy. Your clients and your competitors were halfway across town, maybe halfway across the country. In the 21st century, we operate in a global economy where your customers, your clients, your investors, your competitors, and your partners are just as likely to be halfway around the world as they are halfway down the street. That has made a dramatic structural change to our economy. Last but not least, everything costs more. In the 20th century a bartender and a maid could afford to own a home, own a car, take a vacation once a year with their kids. If my parents tried to do today what they did in 1956, they couldn't. Those jobs just don't pay enough and all those things I just described cost so much more money. We have to respond to these structural changes. We have to turn the page on these old ideas and, quite frankly, on the leaders who have those old ideas. We cannot continue to confront 21st century challenges with 20th century strategies. We need new leaders, and we need new ideas that respond to these deep structural changes. For 4 straight years that I have been talking about this in the Senate, the progress in that regard unfortunately has been slower. I didn't come here today to be overly partisan, but I know in 2008 a lot of people thought that our current President would be that kind of new leader, but that is not what we have gotten. They thought he would be that kind of new leader because he talked about being a champion for the middle class. He talked about a modern agenda of hope and change. But that is not what we have received. Instead of focusing on working families, he focused on things such as the liberal dream of government- run health care. He focused on radical environmental policies instead of focusing on the middle class. Instead of modern ideas, what we got was just old-fashioned big government and crony corporatism. A startling example of it is how the insurance companies have gamed ObamaCare. Imagine for a moment if you were in a business and the government came in with a law that said: We are going to make the people buy the product that you sell. We are going to give them the money to buy the product that you sell. By the way, if you lose money selling the products, we are going to bail you out with taxpayer dollars. That is what big insurance companies were able to get out of ObamaCare. People are required to buy insurance, they get a subsidy to buy that insurance, and if they lose that money, they get a bailout with taxpayer dollars. That is outrageous, and it is not surprising that the stock prices of big insurance companies have doubled since ObamaCare passed. Meanwhile, working Americans are paying more, higher deductibles, higher copayments, higher premiums, and they are getting less coverage. That is an example of corporatism. Despite all this rhetoric that they are fighting on behalf of the middle class, the past few years have been a bonanza for big business, a bonanza for people who can hire the lawyers and the lobbyists to navigate the complexities of government. So it is very simple. If you can hire an army of lawyers and lobbyists in Washington, DC, you get your priorities and bills like the one that is before us today, or others, for that matter. But if you are trying to start a business out of the spare bedroom of your home, if you are a small businessperson who works 7 days a week, 16 hours a day just to stay afloat, you can't hire the best law firm in Washington, DC, to navigate those regulations. And you sure can't afford to hire a lobbying firm to come here to write those laws to your advantage. In fact, I would go farther and say that big government is a competitive advantage for big businesses, because they know that the bigger and more complicated the rules are, the harder it is for someone new to come along and compete with them for that same business. We have seen that time and again. I saw it during my time as a State official, as the speaker of the State house in Florida, and I see it in Washington, DC. This is corporatism and both parties are guilty of it. That is why it shouldn't surprise us that under the past 6 years of this presidency, 95 percent of the income gains in this country have gone to the top 1 percent of earners and 93 percent of Americans have seen virtually no income growth in the past 6 years. Yet we continue to see an effort to push policies from this administration that keeps us on the same course. Here is the course that we are on--radical environmental groups are going to get their way, their policies, and their Executive orders written. Meanwhile, people who work at factories, people who are dependent on energy jobs, they get nothing. Public employee unions that are well represented and spend a lot of money influencing government, they get all the rules they want from the NLRB and the government. They get their help. Do you know who doesn't? The UPS truckers, the plumbers, the pipefitters, the electricians, and the construction workers. All these elites who are going around begging for more government spending, they are going to get their way in this bill from this administration--and middle-class Americans who are working as hard as they ever had, they get stuck with the tax bill to pay for it. We can't keep doing this. If we keep doing this, we are going to lose the American dream. We are going to lose what makes us different, and we are going to lose what makes us special. But I believe with all my heart that if we can turn the page on these policies, not only can we save the American dream but we can have another American century. To do that, there are three key things we have to do, and I wish more of this was reflected in the bill before us. The first thing we need is we need better jobs. Jobs that don't just pay more--and that is important, but jobs that provide enough flexibility as well so that you do have time if you need to take time off to go take your kids to a field trip or a doctor's appointment. Do you know how many Americans out there can't take their kids to a dental appointment because that requires them to take 2 hours off of work? Do you know how many Americans don't have the flexibility to be able to watch their son or their daughter at the Christmas pageant this year in school because their job doesn't have flexibility? These better jobs that I am talking about are jobs that pay more but ultimately provide the flexibility so you have the time to be a better spouse, a member of your community, and a better parent--and jobs that won't disappear with the next advancement in technology, jobs that give you an opportunity for promotion and upward mobility. These are the kinds of jobs we need. In order to have those jobs in America in the 21st century, we need to become globally competitive. We are engaged in a global competition with the rest of the world for these jobs. It is the economic olympics every single day. We can win that competition. We can win it if we had a Tax Code that no longer made America one of the most expensive places in the world to create those jobs. We could win it if we reformed our regulatory code so that we are no longer such a burdensome place to create those jobs. We could win it if we got our national debt under control, which scares people from creating those jobs here because they believe we are headed for a debt crisis in the future. We can win that competition if we fully utilize our energy resources in a safe and responsible way. We have already seen the benefits of American energy exploration, the jobs it creates, not only in energy but in manufacturing. You have already seen the benefits of American energy production in the falling price of gasoline at the pump, and that has real-world implications. Being from Florida, we expect that many more people are going to take the drive to Disney World this winter because getting there is a lot cheaper than it was a year ago. Ticket price is another matter, but getting there is a lot cheaper than it was before. This has real implications. The other thing is we can win that competition, but we have to keep our edge on innovation. We are the world's greatest innovators. We can't lose that edge. By the way, winning that global competition requires us to be globally engaged. We must remain involved in global affairs. Strong American leadership on this planet is a factor in allowing the world to have the prosperity and the stability it needs for a rising middle class--people who can afford to buy the things we sell, the products we offer, the services we offer. We will benefit from that. But creating more of those jobs is not enough. The second thing we have to do is to make sure people have the skills for those new jobs because these new jobs in the 21st century are going to require a higher level of skill than ever before. The problem is we have an archaic 20th century education model. We tell kids in high school that the only way you will ever be successful is you all have to get a 4-year degree. There is nothing wrong with getting a 4-year degree, but it is wrong to tell children and students in this country that is the only way to get ahead when we know in the 21st century there are going to be millions of quality middle-skilled, quality-paying jobs that require more than high school but less than 4 years of college. We have a system that does nothing, absolutely nothing, about that. We don't offer nearly enough vocational problems in high school. Why have we stigmatized jobs where people work with their hands, when we know that we need airplane mechanics, electricians, plumbers, and pipefitters? We need high-tech welders and people who know how to do 21st century welding and machinists for 21st century factories and manufacturing. We can teach these people skills while they are still in high school so they can graduate ready to go to work. We also need more apprenticeship programs, and that is something we can partner with labor unions so we can train and retrain Americans in these higher skilled jobs. We also need to help people who have to work full time. Imagine for a moment a single mother raising two kids on her own and she is a receptionist at a law firm. She is never going to get a significant raise working as a receptionist. The only way she is ever going to get ahead is if she can become a paralegal. But to become a paralegal, she has to go to school. How is she going to go to school under this current system? She wakes up at 6 o'clock in the morning, makes her kids breakfast, drops them off at school, drives to work, works 8 or 9 hours, rushes to the daycare center or the afterschool program before it closes, picks them up and brings them home. She is already tired, but she is not done. She has to make them dinner and make sure they finish their homework. By 11 o'clock she hits that bed and she is exhausted. When is she going to go to school--4 o'clock in the morning? We need to have an education system that is flexible enough so that she can acquire the skills to become a paralegal while she works full time and she raises that family, allowing her to package learning from online courses and work experience. If someone is a receptionist at a law firm and has worked there for 8 or 9 years, there are some skills they have picked up working there that should count for credit hours, instead of forcing you to sit through a 2-year program so the college they are going to can make the money off of them. We need to create programs so that people like her can acquire those skills for 21st century jobs. We also need to create alternatives to traditional college. It doesn't matter where you acquire the learning. You should be able to package all of your learning. Take, for example, someone who has worked 10 years, served in the military, has extensive experience at volunteering, has taken a number of courses at a community college, and wants to get a degree in something. We should be able to package all of that lifelong learning, all of those sources of learning, into the equivalent of a degree program. Do you know how many Americans out there are sitting on 30 or 40 credit hours from a community college? But having 30 hours of college credit is the same as having zero because you don't get any degree certificate for it. So the private sector looks at you and says: We are glad you went to class, but where is your degree or your associate's degree? I wish we had a more concerted effort in helping people who are halfway there to get all the way there by using things such as online coursework and giving them credit for life and work experience. We need to think outside the box on these issues because if we don't empower people with these skills, they won't be able to take advantage of the opportunities of the 21st century. This is what a 21st-century educational system looks like. I would make one more point when talking about schools. The most important school a child will ever attend is their home. We cannot ignore the fact that the breakdown of American families is having a dramatic impact on our economy and the quality of life of our people. There is a reality here about this. A growing number of children are born into single-parent homes or are born into broken families. We have to help them because we know that, statistically speaking, children being raised in broken families and single-parent homes with low incomes will struggle to succeed. They will not have an equal opportunity unless someone does something to help them out. We can help. We can help by helping their parents acquire the skills they need for better jobs, such as the single mother I talked about earlier, but also by giving their parents the opportunity to send them to the school of their choice. It is immoral, it is un-American that the only people in this country who cannot choose where their children go to school are poor people. It is outrageous. Rich people can send their kids to any school they want, and that is their right. The middle class will move to a better neighborhood or struggle to put together just enough money to put their kids into a better school. But if you are poor and the school in your neighborhood is a dangerous school and you are not learning, there is nothing you can do. That is outrageous. The answer to that is, well, improve that school. I agree. But in the 5 years it takes to improve that school, that child has gone from first grade to sixth grade, and you are never getting those years back. Every parent in America--especially low-income parents--deserves the opportunity to put their children in the school of their choice. There are other ways we can help families. Primarily that is our responsibility as individuals and communities. But we should have a promarriage Tax Code, a promarriage government program. We shouldn't have marriage penalties. We shouldn't tell people ``If you get married your taxes are going to go up'' or ``If you get married you will lose Medicare, Medicaid.'' We have to get rid of those things. We have to remove those marriage penalties in our Tax Code and in our programs. By the way, we should also protect our faith communities. They are an important part of instilling values because you can have all the diplomas on the wall you want, but if you don't have the values of hard work and discipline and self-control and respect for others and respect for the dignity of the life of all people, you will struggle to succeed. No one is born with those values; those values have to be taught by strong families in a strong home, and they have to be reinforced by strong communities. One of the pillars of a strong community is our faith community, whatever faith you choose. That is why protecting religious liberty is so important. Last but not least, restoring the American dream isn't just about better jobs and better training and better skills; it is also about dealing with the cost of living. That is why I think in the coming year we desperately need a profamily Tax Code. Instead of all these loopholes that are designed to help big business or the cronies of the people who serve here in Washington, we need a profamily Tax Code. For example, let's increase the child tax credit because it costs money to raise children in the 21st century and these working families are struggling to provide for their children. Let's have a profamily Tax Code like the one Senator Lee of Utah and I have proposed. Let's increase the child tax credit. We also have to deal with the cost of higher education. It is completely out of control. Do you know who is getting destroyed by that? The middle class. I had the honor of teaching a course at Florida International University. There are many working-class students there. And here is their frustration, and they are right: Their parents make too much money for financial aid, but they do not make enough money to be able to afford the school. So do you know what they do? They take out loans in the tens of thousands of dollars. I know about this firsthand because when I was sworn into the Senate here 4 years ago, I owed over $100,000 in student loans. My parents could never afford to pay for my school. I was blessed to be able to receive Pell grants and other assistance, but I still had to use loans. When we first got married, it was our single largest expenditure. I used to joke with my wife: You didn't just get married to me; you got married to Sallie Mae. Every month Sallie sent us a $1,300 or $1,400 bill. There are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of young people across America who are stuck with big loan debt and degrees that don't lead to jobs. I hope we will tackle that this year, and there are a couple of proposals that I think will help. The first is we should make income-based repayment the repayment method for everyone unless you opt out of it. Second, I think people deserve the right to know before they take out a loan how much they can expect to make. Before you take out a loan to pay the tuition of the school, that school should be required to tell you: This is how much people who graduate from our school make when they graduate with this degree. So you can decide whether it is worth borrowing $100,000 to be a Greek philosophy major because the market for Greek philosophers is very tight these days. Last but not least, I think we need alternatives to traditional student loans. One of the things I have proposed is something called the student investment plan, which allows people to invest in your future. Basically, it is a venture fund in you. Someone will come forward and say: We will give you the money to go to college. In exchange, you will pay us back 1 or 2 percent of your income for your first 10 years. They are investing in you. It is a student investment plan. It is not for everyone. It is not a panacea, but it is an alternative to student loans. One of the things that would help, by the way, that would be an alternative to student loans, is what I mentioned earlier--if you were able to package learning and turn self-directed learning into the equivalent of a degree. There are other big items contributing to the cost of living. Health care I don't need to tell you about. How many people out there today, particularly in the middle class, are starting to find out they have higher deductibles, higher copayments, higher premiums, and are getting less coverage than they used to have. This is not a myth. It is not a rumor. This is happening to millions of people. We get the calls, and so do you in your office about all these things. One last point on the cost of living is dealing with poverty. Our antipoverty programs don't work. There are antipoverty programs in this Cromnibus--a term, by the way, none of us have ever used before. I don't know who makes these things up. But anyway, there are antipoverty programs in this bill. Our antipoverty programs alleviate poverty, but they don't cure it. Imagine if you broke your arm and you went to the hospital and they said: Here is a lifetime supply of pain killers. I am not saying you shouldn't help people with the pain from the broken arm, but you have to fix that broken arm. Our programs don't fix poverty. They do not cure poverty. We need programs that will cure poverty. That is why I believe we need what is called the flex fund, where we take all of our existing antipoverty dollars--I am not saying cut it; I am saying take our existing antipoverty dollars and put them in a flex fund and allow States and local communities to design specific plans that work in their communities. I can tell you that in the State of Florida, urban poverty and rural poverty have different elements to them. A program that might work very well in the inner city of Miami doesn't work at all with the rural poverty in South Dade. We should allow States and local communities to design programs that help cure poverty. The ultimate cure for poverty is a good job. That means everyone who is on these assistance programs should either be in school acquiring the skills they need for a better job or they should be working, improving their skills through experience. Let me just say this about that, and I have talked about one of the aspects of the reforms we want--a wage enhancement. If the only job you can find pays $8 or $9 an hour but you need $15 an hour to provide for yourself, I would rather come up with government money and make up the difference through a wage enhancement than give you $9 or $10 an hour or the equivalent of $7 or $8 an hour in a welfare check. Because while you are working, you are gaining experience, and we are also helping supplement your paycheck so you can pay your bills. That condition isn't forever. It can't become a way of life. But if you have been unemployed for 5 or 6 years and you show up somewhere to get a job and they ask you what you have been doing for the last 6 years and you say you haven't been doing anything, your chances of getting that job have just diminished dramatically. It is not good for people to be unemployed long term in terms of their long-term job prospects. That is why I have talked about a wage enhancement program as well. I think if we do all these things I have talked about--make ourselves a globally competitive economy so the jobs are created here, give our people 21st-century skills, help people deal with the cost of living--I think we have every reason in the world to be optimistic about our future. I will close by saying that I think sometimes we get confused here about how we measure the greatness of our country or the progress we are making. We look to facts and figures, such as the unemployment rate, and we look at the GDP of the country, and these are important figures. We shouldn't ignore them. But let me tell you how I measure the progress of this country. I mentioned earlier that my father was a bartender. At many of the events I have been involved in through public service over the years, I give a speech somewhere, and there is a bartender standing behind a bar in the back of the room. Almost every time I see that, it reminds me of my father, who stood for so many years behind a bar. He was happy for the work he had, but that is not the life he wanted for us. He wanted something more for us. My father stood behind that bar all those years so that one day I could have the chance to stand here on the floor of the United States Senate and talk about things like the American dream. That journey from behind that bar to where I am standing here tonight is the American dream. That is the American dream. A few years ago someone heard me give that speech in New York City, and after I was done speaking the employees there came up to me and handed me this name tag. It said ``Rubio, Banquet Bartender.'' It was one of the most touching gifts I ever got from anyone, but it was also a reminder that whether we remain a special nation will be determined by whether people today can do what my parents did; by whether people today can still make that journey my father made from behind that bar to where I stand today. Can the single mother provide her children the life she always wanted but never had? Can that worker at that hotel open doors for their children that were closed for him? That is how we will know we are still special. If they can, then this new century is also going to be an American century. We do have real challenges, but we also have real opportunities. And there is no time in history that I would rather be in than right here, right now. I believe technology will allow us to collaborate and reach more people than ever before. I believe innovation will solve problems we once thought were insurmountable. I believe a rising global middle class will provide more prosperity to more people everywhere than we have ever seen. That is what I believe the 21st century can be about. I believe you and I live on the eve of another American century. All we have to do now is to reach for it and grab it. All we have to do now is do what our parents did for us--whatever it took to leave for their children a better life and a better future. If we do that, then we will leave behind for our children what every generation of Americans before us has left behind: the single greatest nation in the history of all mankind. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.