Guest Author
By Marco Rubio
Nearly 450 years ago, Spanish settlers fulfilled their dreams of building a new world by founding the city of St. Augustine.
This city’s past can teach us a great deal about who we are today, both as Floridians and as Americans. But just as the theme of this celebration calls us to “find ourselves in our past,” we should also seize this opportunity to look ahead to the challenges and opportunities of the future.
St. Augustine’s 450 years have been filled with leaders who saw the potential the future offered. The Spanish settlers who first founded the city took on the unknown in the New World to found what would become America’s oldest city. In the 1880s, Henry Flagler looked forward and transformed St. Augustine into a destination unlike any other, leading to an economic boom that would elevate the city to a level its settlers wouldn’t have thought possible. And in the 1960s, as the nation faced changes that many thought would tear us apart, civil rights leaders chose St. Augustine as the rally point for their cause.
Now it is our generation’s turn to look ahead to the future. In this new century, we have the chance to expand the American Dream to reach more people than ever before. Like the Spanish settlers 450 years ago, like Henry Flagler in the 1880s and like the civil rights leaders in the 1960s, we are now facing an opportunity to take America forward and fulfill our potential to be greater than we’ve ever been.
We have reached yet another turning point in our history. Everyday life is very different than it was just 10 years ago. Globalization and technology are rapidly transforming our economy, and around the world, new threats to our security have joined old ones. But while our economy and our world are changing, our government is not. Outdated leaders with outdated ideas are holding us back from the potential of this new age, and both parties in Washington are to blame.
I believe to seize our potential in this new age, we must first modernize our government to address the modern challenges facing our people. This will require a pro-growth, pro-family tax reform that will make it easier for businesses to create jobs and easier for families to reach financial security. It will require a 21st century higher education system that equips all Americans with the skills they need for high-paying modern jobs, that no longer graduates students with mountains of debt and degrees that do not lead to jobs and that graduates more students from high school ready to work. And we need a foreign policy that promotes American strength, protects the American economy and reflects our core values as a nation.
These are only some of the ideas we must pursue to create a future that is even brighter than our past. As we mark the 450th anniversary of St. Augustine’s founding, we are reminded of the many generations that passed a brighter future down through the ages to us. We are also reminded that our own turn has come. Instead of simply “finding ourselves in our past,” let’s move forward together to find a better future that will make the next century a new American century.
