News

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a video message ahead of President Joe Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress outlining the steps he has taken to make life more affordable for hard-working American families and secure a more prosperous future. 
 
Supporting American Families
 
Senator Rubio understands that it is impossible to be a strong country without strong and stable families. He has a proven track record in making it easier for hard-working parents to start and grow a family. 

• Tax Cuts for Working Families. In 2017, Rubio fought against some in his own party to double the Child Tax Credit. “For Mr. Rubio, it was a natural extension of the promise he believes the Republican Party had made, and was in danger of abandoning, to look out for the little guy,” wrote the New York Times.
• Paid Parental Leave. In 2018, Rubio became the first Republican to introduce a national paid parental leave program, the New Parents Act. “Rubio’s proposal represents a hopeful movement toward articulating a much larger, pro-family political agenda,” one commentator observed. “Rather than complain on the sidelines, it’s time more conservatives join in this worthy and necessary endeavor.”
• Earned Income Tax Credit. In 2014, Rubio unveiled a plan to replace the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) with a federal wage enhancement for qualifying low-wage jobs. “This is what smart conservatives want to do to fight poverty,” wrote Vox. “[Rubio’s] wage enhancement proposal could help advance an important conversation about the best way to supplement income for low-wage workers,” wrote the Tax Policy Center.
• Child Care Costs. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Rubio requested and secured an $85 million increase in funds for the Child Care and Development Block Grant program in Fiscal Year 2021, and an increase of $550 million for the same program in Fiscal Year 2020.

Making Education More Accessible, Effective, and Affordable
 
Senator Rubio understands that education is burying working families in debt for degrees that do not lead to good jobs. He has a proven track record of success in pushing for changes to make education more affordable, accessible, and applicable to the skills of the 21st century.

• College Accreditation Reform. In 2014, Rubio proposed a sweeping overhaul of the college accreditation system to create opportunities to give people the equivalent of a degree by providing credit for work experience or by packaging courses from a variety of different places. “Marco Rubio is the only Republican talking about college costs,” wrote Vox in 2015. “Rubio’s critique of higher education, though, builds on work he’s done over the past several years in the Senate to push legislation overhauling various aspects of accreditation, federal student loan repayment and how the government can or should track the performance of colleges and universities,” wrote Inside Higher Ed that same year.
• Vocational Training and Apprenticeship Programs. In 2013, Rubio made the case that career and technical training, along with apprenticeship programs, need to play a larger role in our higher education system. Rubio’s American Dreams Account Act, which helped to increase the number of low-income and at-risk students able to access and complete college or technical education, became law in 2018.
• Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Rubio has long understood the important contributions Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) make to the country. He cosponsored the FUTURE Act, which ultimately became law in 2019 and permanently extended funding for HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions. Rubio also proposed the creation of Innovation Centers in Underserved Communities as part of his 2019 Small Business Act reauthorization.  
• Transparency and Affordability. Rubio has proposed multiple bills to increase transparency for student borrowers and accountability for lenders and higher education institutions,; including the LOAN Act to eliminate interest for federal student loans; the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act to better understand the costs and outcomes associated with higher education; and the Protecting JOBS Act to ensure borrowers are not inhibited from working in their trained field solely because they fell behind on their federal student loan payments.

 
Delivering Results for American Families 
 
Senator Rubio was the most effective Republican Senator in the 116th Congress (2019-2021) according to a non-partisan analysis produced by the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL), an initiative of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University. 
 
As Chairman of the U.S Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Rubio created the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Florida benefited enormously from the PPP, which sent $42.1 billion in financial assistance to 608,905 loans throughout the state to small businesses, saving over 3.3 million jobs. Former CBO Director Doug Holtz-Eakin called PPP “the single most effective fiscal policy ever undertaken by the United States Government.”
 
Earlier this year, a non-partisan analysis produced by GovTrack ranked Rubio as the second top leader compared to all Senators in 2020. In February Rubio released a report called “Fighting for Florida: Mid-Term Update,” detailing his legislative accomplishments in 2020 and the landmark laws he wrote over the past four years.