Mitch Perry
Marco Rubio‘s second book, “American Dream: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone,“ it being published in paperback Tuesday. To mark the occasion, the rising GOP presidential candidate will give a speech at Civic Hall in New York City and will engage in a short Q&A with members of the New York tech community.
The appearance is being promoted as, “The Sharing economy and public policy: A discussion with U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.” While campaigning, Rubio has frequently invoked Uber and Airbnb as models of how the economy has changed in the 21st century and how our policies must follow course.
In carving out the space to show that he’s a candidate of “The New American Century,” he’s relished posing his thoughts about the sharing economy with the woman he’d love to run against in next year’s general election, Hillary Clinton.
“[M]any Americans are making extra money renting out a spare room, designing websites, selling products they design themselves at home, or even driving their own car,” Clinton said in her first economic speech, in June. “This ‘on demand’ or so-called ‘gig economy’ is creating exciting opportunities and unleashing innovation but it’s also raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future.”
Rubio pushed back hard on those comments.
“She’s trying to apply 20th century constructs to a 21st century innovative industry,” Rubio said on CNN in reaction to the former first lady’s comments. “We’re trying to regulate Internet development the way we regulated telephony, you know, telephone systems 20 years ago. You cannot regulate 21st century industries with 20th century ideas. And her take on Airbnb, Lyft, Uber, these sorts of things, is a perfect example of someone who’s trapped in the past, and cannot understand how much the world is changing, and how much it’s going to change in the years to come economically.”
Before he became a presidential candidate, Rubio taught a course on on Florida politics at Florida International University in Miami. In “American Dream“ he writes that he taught about the benefits of the sharing economy by using Uber, and how excessive regulations at the time were preventing the company from operating in Miami.
Here’s an excerpt from the book’s second chapter, called, “Making America Safe for Uber.”
The students in my class were genuinely intrigued by this innovative service and wondered why they didn’t have it in Miami…Politicians, I said, had passed rules to stifle competition that might threaten their constituents and supporters in the existing taxi and sedan-service industry…As my progressive young students listened to me explain why government was preventing them from using their cell phones to get home from the bars on Saturday night, I could see their minds change.
Before I knew it, I was talking to a bunch of 20- and 21-year-old anti-regulatory activists.
It should be noted that while Uber (and its ridesharing competitor Lyft) are officially not in compliance with the rules and regulations in Miami-Dade County, the services continue to operate there.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said recently that he will be pushing for a rewrite of county taxi laws that would deregulate part of the cab industry, and allow ridesharing to be legal by the end of the year.
