Mitch PerryAlthough the phrase may have originated with Occupy Wall Street, it seems like several GOP candidates for president next year will be talking about economic inequality.
At least Jeb Bush will be, according to the platform he laid out with the unveiling of his new PAC, The Right to Rise, on Tuesday.
“We believe the income gap is real,” Bush writes in the manifesto for The Right to Rise. “but that only conservative principles can solve it by removing the barriers to upward mobility.”
Jeb actually spends several paragraphs devoted to this topic. He writes that, “Millions of our fellow citizens across the broad middle class feel as if the American Dream is now out of their reach; that our politics are petty and broken; that opportunities are elusive; and that the playing field is no longer fair or level. Too many of the poor have lost hope that a path to a better life is within their grasp. While the last eight years have been pretty good ones for top earners, they’ve been a lost decade for the rest of America. We are not leading – at home or abroad.”
That sounds remarkably similar to a speech that Marco Rubio gave in Tampa last month.
“I’m not anti-Wall Street,” Rubio said in a passage where he took a shot at the contributions that Hillary Clinton has taken from the financial sector. “It has a place in our society, but what we should be fighting for is Main Street … the people who are trying to get ahead. The people who have millions of dollars in their bank accounts, we just need to treat them fairly. They can take care of themselves. But the person trying to start a business out of a spare bedroom in their home? They’re the ones that need the lowest tax rates. They’re the ones who need regulations to be under control. They’re the ones who need us to bring the national debt under control. They’re the ones that need help.”
Bush also alludes to “the energy revolution,” immigration and improving the education system in his manifesto. As a few observers noted on Twitter yesterday, that sounds very similar in broad themes to what George W. Bush campaigned on back in 2000. He used to call it “compassionate conservatism.” Jeb appears to be the running as the “adult in the room,” but a question remains: Is that message what Republican voters are thirsting for in 2015, much less 2016?
In other news…
It was a day like no other in the Sunshine State yesterday, as same-sex couples were legally married throughout the state, including over a hundred at a noon time ceremony in downtown Tampa.
Tampa City Council Chairman Charlie Miranda says he’s ready to work on some series water issues if he’s elected to a new seat in March.
Meanwhile, the woman who has sat next to Miranda for the past eight years on Council, Mary Mulhern, endorsed Miranda’s opponent in the District 2 race this spring, Julie Jenkins.
