Mitch Perry
When Marco Rubio announces his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president Monday in downtown Miami, there are certain themes he will undoubtedly hit upon (albeit in a speech of only 12 minutes, its reported duration).
Fresh off President Barack Obama‘s meeting up with Raul Castro this past weekend at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, you can rest assured that the administration’s diplomatic breakthrough with the communist island will be featured in the speech. The fact that he’s holding it at the iconic Freedom Tower, leased by the U.S. government for use as the Cuban Refugee Emergency Center from 1962 to 1974, guarantees that.
The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio has always incorporated the story of his parents leaving Cuba as a parable about the American Dream. (He got into trouble a few years ago by claiming they left the island after Fidel Castro took power in 1959. In fact, they came to America in 1956, while Fulgencio Batista was very much still in power.) Rubio has always spoken about his parents’ journey to the United States, and how that dream is still very much alive, but has been damaged during the Obama presidency.
There will be a significant critique of Obama’s foreign policies, with Cuba just one part of it, but it will be a theme that will undoubtedly fire up the partisan audience in the land of Cuban exiles. From there we will undoubtedly hear criticism of the administration’s negotiations with Iran on a nuclear deal, about the about the personal contretemps between the president and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rubio has concentrated hard on international affairs since getting to Washington four years ago, and likely will refer to other foreign policy events that he thinks have hurt America: in Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, ISIS, etc. The list for Rubio (as it is for many Republicans) is long when it comes to referring to perceived shortcomings with America’s standing in the world since 2008.
It’s on the domestic side where Rubio will potentially offer something different than his competitors (which at this point officially include only Rand Paul and Ted Cruz but will increase significantly in the coming months).
As we reported in December, Rubio is talking a good game when it comes to dealing with economic inequality, a truly significant development going on in the country. He speaks of how the middle class is splintering. “They feel this way because despite the fact that they’re doing everything they used to do,” he said at the Republican Party of Florida’s winter meeting. “They are working hard, they haven’t had a raise in years, and yet everything costs more.”
The high costs for college tuition, globalization and enhanced technology may be referenced as among the culprits hurting the middle class.
He may not get into the details during the speech, but Rubio has been working with Utah’s U.S. Sen. Mike Lee on an economic plan. It would use the tax code to benefit families with children, while at the same time cutting taxes on businesses and investment income. As reported by Politico, under Rubio’s plan, there would be just two tax personal income tax brackets, 15 percent and 35 percent. The plan would also create a new child tax credit worth $2,500 and eliminate the estate tax. On the business side, it would create a top rate of 25 percent, down form the current 35 percent, allow immediate deductions for investments, and create a territorial tax system that would not apply U.S. tax rates to foreign income earned abroad by U.S. businesses. It would also eliminate business tax credits and many deductions.
Hillary Clinton will surely be name checked several times as well. In his speech in December in Tampa, Rubio sounded like someone from MoveOn.org in referring to Clinton’s Wall Street connections.
