Democrats hoping that the upcoming Republican presidential primaries will be reminiscent of the sprint to the far-right four years ago may have been disappointed Wednesday after remarks made by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
Defending his tax plan from conservative criticism, the hopeful Commander-in-Chief not only suggested that inequality is problematic, but said that Ronald Reagan’s approach to governing wouldn’t be appropriate today.
Rubio said that Republicans “need to recognize that the 21st century has some significant differences from the era from which [Reagan] governed,” in response to a reporter’s question about a Wall Street Journal editorial at the Heritage Foundation.
“Taxes rates are different. Globalization is real. We need to stay globally competitive and we need to recognize that in the 21st century, families face expenses and challenges that weren’t there in the 20th,” the junior senator said.
“My family made it to the middle class as a bartender and as a maid. It would be very difficult for them to do that in the 21st century because of what those jobs paid,” he added. He said his father would have had to become an electrician or a welder and that his mother would have needed to become a dental hygienist or a paralegal to earn the same amount of money today, in real terms.
Rubio was at Heritage alongside Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) touting a white paper on tax policy the pair introduced last month. The proposal has come under fire from the right for favoring tax credits and not pushing tax cuts with sufficient vigor.
On Monday, after Rubio announced his candidacy for the White House, the Wall Street Journal said his fiscal policy makes him “the party’s most visible ally of the ‘new’ Republican idea that the Reagan tax-cutting agenda is a political dead end.”
Rubio said the plan is based on “limited government and free enterprise” and Lee claimed it carried the Reagan mantle. The duo said the child tax credit is intended to correct an imbalance that sees families with too heavy of a tax burden.
The extent to which Republican Party donors and members agree will be made clear as the presidential primaries advance.
