Marco Rubio, the Obama Stimulus and the Bush Bailout

Gary Fineout is a journalist who works in Florida. In October he blogged about the conservative senatorial candidate Marco Rubio's stand on the Obama stimulus. He wrote:

"Rubio has been highly critical of the $787 billion stimulus package for months, repeating that government spending can't create prosperity. In his latest pitch to donors, Rubio's campaign states that Crist's 'enthusiastic support for a big government spending policy' has failed to halt the rise in unemployment while adding to the deficit."

However, it is important to recognize that although the stimulus package was a nonsensical blunder, a much bigger subsidy has been bestowed upon Wall Street. That includes the Bush/Obama/McCain-supported bailout of Wall Street as well as considerable hidden subsidies to the street via the Federal Reserve Bank. Some experts estimate that the actual subsidies to the street have been as high as $14 trillion, 14 times what Obama said in his state of the union address.

There are various kinds of Republicans. One way of classifying them is big versus small government supporters. Small government supporters oppose the Wall Street subsidies. Big government supporters support the Bush/Paulson bailout. It is a sign of the failure of the majority of rank-and-file, small government Republicans that they have allowed big government types to dominate their party nationally.

Marco Rubio claims to be a small government type and so representative of the Tea Party. But did he support or oppose the Paulson bailout, which is the chief reason Obama was elected with such heavy support from the street and the mass media it finances?

In a Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times article Adam C. Smith and Alex Leary quote National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer:

"He was a big disappointment to us when he was the speaker...He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk."

The article adds:

"The 38-year-old campaigning as an authentic, from-the-gut conservative is the same person who spent tens of thousands of dollars to test political messages on focus groups, gave out big staff salaries and, like Crist, favored a $60 million subsidy for a new Florida Marlins stadium...The candidate Rubio rails against big-government spending and assures voters that as a senator he won't slip earmarks into the federal budget. As speaker, however, he didn't mind a state budget with $800,000 tucked away for artificial turf on Miami-Dade fields where he played flag football."

There is no reason to trust the Miami Herald any more than there is reason to trust Rubio or anyone else that MSNBC or other big media sources tout, as in the video below. But it is imperative that Republicans question Rubio as to his position, not on the partisan Obama "stimulus" issue, which Republicans have used as cover for the massive government spending bloat of the Bush era, but on the Bush/Paulson/Obama/McCain bailout of October 2008, which was a far more damaging, far reaching and larger subsidy.

If you favor small government, the bigger problem is the Fed subsidies, not the stimulus. Where does Rubio stand on this issue, which is orders of magnitude larger than the stimulus?

People need to ask Rubio this question. Then ask it again. And again.