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Sen. Rubio on “The Hugh Hewitt Show”

Sen. Rubio: People Are Going to Be Shocked to Learn the Real Truth About What the Government’s Done With Their Social Security Money

Hugh Hewitt: “Senator Rubio, you represent a lot of senior citizens in Florida. The country knows that. I think it’s despicable to scare them this way. What’s your reaction to the President’s threat to hold their Social Security checks hostage?”

Sen. Rubio: “Well, if they don’t get their Social Security checks, it’s because the President’s decided to do that, because we still have revenue coming in. Here’s the other thing I would say. If in fact the President holds up their checks for Social Security, and Medicare, and whatever else he wants to hold up to make his point, isn’t he admitting that all these programs are funded by deficit spending? Isn’t he admitting that all these programs are dependent upon borrowed money?

“And I think the folks who are on Social Security, people like my mom, would be shocked to learn the truth that the money that they’re receiving in Social Security isn’t the money they worked hard for all these years to put away, the government was going to give back to them in their retirement. The government spent all that money already. They spent it long ago on other things. This is borrowed money. This is money that we’re borrowing from our children and our grandchildren. And I think people are going to, if that happens, I think people are going to be shocked to learn the real truth about what the government’s done with their Social Security money.”

Sen. Rubio: This Issue of the Debt Limit Didn’t Sneak Up On Us

Hugh Hewitt: “Do you think the negotiations that he had lured Republicans into over the last couple of weeks have been in bad faith?”

Sen. Rubio: “Well, I wasn’t in those negotiations, so I’d hate to characterize something I wasn’t a part of. Let me say that he was late to the game.

“First of all, the President, this is not a new issue, okay? This issue of the debt limit didn’t sneak up on us. This has been around for a while. We knew this was coming. And then the President’s done nothing on it. He gave a state of the union speech this year, never mentioned any plans about how to address this. He offered a budget before Congress, and the budget was so bad, I mean, it actually increased the debt. His budget was so bad, so unrealistic, that when we put it to a vote here in the Senate, not even a single Democrat voted for it. That’s how bad it was. It didn’t get a single vote.

“So he’s had multiple opportunities to deal with this, and he’s kind of punted and moved the ball along, and focused on other things. And now, with three weeks to go, two weeks to go, all of a sudden, he wants to ride in and act like he’s leading. Well, he’s not leading. In fact, what he’s doing is he’s trying to position this as a political issue, so he can claim victory for his 2012 election. But the reality of it is that people know better, they’re going to realize it, we’re going to continue to talk about it.”