CPAC 2013 – Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)

Published on Mar 14, 2013

Here is the transcript:

Let me just say I love the hospitality but this is an exaggeration. One should suffice. Better safe than — thank you guys so much I’m so honored to be here with you guys to be back — — — I don’t know if you remember maybe — — here three years ago I came here.

When my chances of winning in the US senate were about as much my chances of winning a papal — — — but. I didn’t win and we want thanks all of you and hope you’ve — me your support. Let me tell you why I ran three years ago I ran because I believe this — extraordinarily special and like many of you I believe — — — that was headed in the wrong direction.

And as we gather here today for this — — three years later. I believe that more today than I did just three years ago. And we have to do something about and that’s what we’re here to talk about today.

Now five cents from a lot of people — been talking to was this fear that somehow America’s chains that are people changed. That we reached this point in time and we have too many people in America that want too much from government that made the changes that it happened or irreversible and that will never be the same again. I — understand that that’s not true.

Our people have not changed. The vast majority of the American people are hard working taxpayers. — or to take responsibility for their families.

Go to work every day they pay their mortgage. John — they volunteer the community this is what the vast majority of the American people still are. What’s changed is the world around us.

It’s changed in dramatic — just think how much the world has changed in the last ten years. The global economy is real we don’t live in the national economy anymore. Everything you buy everything you — everything you touch it’s all impacted by things that are happening halfway around the world.

The information age is real — made our lives easier. It’s allowed — right now. Take pictures of your — than we every word I say for — against me.

It’s changed the world and it’s made out like — there it’s also changed our economy. You going to a grocery store today and you’ll find machines doing the job the people wants to do. You find — day and many businesses that one person because of automation can do the work at five people used to do.

It’s the world around us that has changed. And this is had an impact. On our people.

On our hardworking people. Many of — their jobs wiped out jobs they’ve been doing for twenty years disappeared overnight. Many of them and and that many of them do things the right way for example they pay their mortgages on time.

And now when the housing bubble came they were stuck with the bill up for bailing out the banks the cost. For bailing out the people took out mortgages they couldn’t afford to pay. Everywhere they look.

Basic trouble around the they look to Washington DC a that they don’t have enough trouble to begin with. Every week Washington’s creating some sort of man — prices for them to worry about. And they look at the political process whether it’s fair — not.

And what many of them see is they think that one side is fighting for the people — have made any and all the other side does this fight for government policies to protect the people who are struggling. And they don’t want to take anything away from anybody the vast majority of Americans in the hard working middle class. They don’t want to take away from people that have made it they don’t want to hurt the people that are trying.

But they wonder who’s fighting for them. As fighting for the hardworking everyday people of this country who do things right and do not complain that a built this nation and have made an exception. And it’s conservative believers and limited government and free enterprise.

That is both our challenge and our opportunity. To — airport. And by the way I can’t think of a better — Because our hardworking middle class.

Is one of the things that makes America different and special from the rest of the world. Every country in the world — rich people. Unfortunately every country in the world have poor people but few have the kind of vibrant widespread middle class that America does.

A widespread middle class that everyone we have said should have any opportunity to be — part of the middle class or even better. It sets us apart from the world. And in that — you hear all this debate about infighting among conservatives infighting among people that believe in limited government that’s really foolish notion.

People who disagree on all sorts of things in the real world work together all the time on things they do agree. And there has to be — home and a movement in America for people who believe in limited government. Constitutional principles and a free enterprise system and that should be out.

Now in order to work together — people that you disagree with. There has to be mutual respect. That means I respect people to disagree with me on certain things but they have to respect need to.

Just because I believe that   states should have the right to define marriage in the traditional way does not make me — — This. Just because we believe that life all life on human. It’s worthy of protection at every stage of its development does not make.

— The people who are actually close minded American politics. Are the people that loved to preach about the certainty about science when regards to our climate. But ignore the absolute fact that science has proven that life begins at conception.

Our challenge is to create an agenda applying our principles. Are principles they still work. Applying our time has the principles to the challenges of today.

And what is an agenda like like that look like. What the government has three things that can do to help. A limited government has three things that it can do to help the first — can make America the best place in the world to create middle class jobs.

That’s why we needed for example to engage in the global economy — fair trade. But we also need to engage in the world — we’re living in a global economy America must be — Eisenhower uses global influence we can’t solve every war. We can’t be involved in every armed conflict but we also can’t be retreating from the world.

And so that balance is critically important for us to strike because we live in the global economy. Beyond that we need to have pro — energy policies including oil and natural gas. Our regulations.

Our regulations — — be the product of a cost benefit analysis you — you go to some of these other countries the government is trying to help the business community. In America business feels like government is there impediment — competitive — and the stock. — — Cannot be used to inflate things — and distort our economy.

The list goes on and now we know about tax policy we need to have a program tax structure not one that’s designed to take from — and give to others. And about and last but not least we believe in solving our debt problem not just — some ideological affinity but because it’s hurting job creation. Jobs are not being created America there are jobs that are not being created in this country because we have sixteen and a half trillion dollar debt.

Only scheduled to get bigger. Have to be solved and you can only solve — the only real approach that — is the combination of fiscal discipline and rapid economic growth there is no. Tax increase in the world that will solve our long term debt problem.

A but secondly. — our government can help with there was help ourselves by acquiring the skills of the 21 century and that’s why I think every parent in America should have been. Opportunity to send their children to this love their — It’s.

Finally. We should encourage Career Education. Not everyone has to go to a four year liberal arts — Yeah.

We still need plumbers. He parked under wire we graduating more kids not to with a high school diploma but — an industry certification and a career a real middle. One afternoon and last — — time last but not least.

Do not underestimate I — this movement does not the impact that the breakdown of the American family is having on our people and their long term future. Now. Government’s role in solving that is limited we have to talk about — — — Government’s role in solving this is limited but ultimately should recognize we do have obligations to each other.

In addition to our individual rights are individual responsibilities to each other but not through government through community. — our churches and through our neighborhoods as parents and neighbors and friends. — of the best ways in which we conserve our fellow Americans.

Through voluntary organizations where every single day Americans from all walks of life. Are literally changing the world one day when life when neighbor at a time. And last but not least the cost of living is real and that’s why we need — Health Care Reform.

But not a Health Care Reform that injects the federal government and a takeover of the world’s highest quality health care industry. But — Health Care Reform that — Americans so they can buy health insurance from any company in America that’s willing to sell — My last point. My last point on cost of living and you’ll hear a lot about — you should be very concerned about student loan that is the next big bubble in America.

I know something about — I graduated with over a 100000 dollars in student loans. And I paid it off last year with the proceeds of my book which is America available on Amazon for 1299 and. Anyway.

We have and let me tell you that really hurts student loans you know that really hurts it hurts the middle class. Because many of them their parents make a little bit too much to qualify for grants. And so they have to rely on the student loans and we have to start solving that problem there are kinds of innovative ideas whether — self directed learning.

Whether — — and empowering people with more information so they know how much they can expect to make it — graduate with a certain degree — how much they can expect. Whatever it may — we have to tackle this issue. It is a major problem for our future and a major problem for the American middle class my time is up to let me close.

Couple things. If you look at our government. You have a right to be pessimistic.

But here’s the good news our government has never been — there. America’s never been our government. America has never been our politicians.

America’s always been our people. With all — bad news out there you can still find the tremendous promise tomorrow in the — stories of our people let me tell you once. There’s this couple that I know there on my sons tackle football team seven.

Missed their sanity — There’s a couple their mayor. She works as a receptionist at a dental office and medical office he loads boxes from trucks at a warehouse. I don’t have to tell you — struck.

— live in a little small apartment they share one car. They want they’re not freeloaders. Are not liberals.

They’re just everyday people who want what everybody else wants. They want a better life they want a better life for themselves and an even better life for their children. And they’re desperate and sometimes when you’re like that let me tell you no matter how.

— maybe you’re susceptible to this argument that maybe government is the only thing. And explain that that’s not true. The first thing they really need is an economy.

— back and vibrant economy that’s creating the kind of middle class jobs that will allow them to get for themselves that better future. The next thing they — skills for those jobs. There are three million jobs available in America there are not filled because aren’t too many of our people don’t have the skills — those jobs.

That’s what they — — for those new jobs so instead of being a receptionist she can be an ultrasound tech. — instead of loading boxes from a truck he can be fixing those trucks. And the third thing they — as a place where their cost of living was affordable.

Where — — paycheck isn’t leading the way. Let me tell you what the stakes are the stakes are not just America. The stakes are bigger than.

Never never in the history of the world’s water and — popular. And — you know. Our — I tell you what I think is at stake a lot bigger than just the American political debate.

As you know yesterday — was the transition in the government trying. Avenue president they have new leaders this — allowed to go around giving speeches where he refers to something called the Chinese the China dream. You missed it what’s the China dream does that mean and — — China dreams.

The China — — the — A book that was written by I think the — the Chinese army colonel let me take — the — — the book it’ll — — the time reading. That China’s goal should be to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent military and economic — That’s what the China — In fact in the forward avenue rights and other general right to the — percent to should — a race. To see who can become the champion country to lead world progress.

So while we are here victory in this country and arguing about whether which spend more than we take in — government’s role should be. There is a nation trying to — us as the leading power in the world. And you may think — — why that matters some people would say let someone else take the lead for awhile we’re tired of solving the world’s problems and believe me I understand.

I do it’s frustrating. But let me — something first let me explain to — to the Chinese — The Chinese. Provide the people no access to the Internet.

The Chinese Government will — citizens prisoner without any right to recourse the Chinese Government. Courses and tortures people until they get confessions from them. The Chinese Government restricts the ability of people to — some.

If you escape China they actually put pressure on governments to forcibly return. The Chinese Government has coercive birth limitation policy which means that in some cases they are forcing — person abortions and sterilizations. The Chinese Government use of forced labor.

And this is what they — to their own people. Have to be the leading country in the world. Want that to be the leading voice on this planet.

That’s the stakes. That’s what’s at stake in America’s greatness this is not just about national pride. The truth of the matter is don’t take this for granted.

What we have here is different and special and historic. In the vast history of the world and of mankind almost everyone that’s ever been born as poor and disadvantaged with no ability to get ahead. What’s made — different is that here people had a real chance to get a better life no matter where they started out.

And do not underestimate what that is meant for the world. Now Susan down speaking out time but the criticism on the left is — be number one he drank too much water. They didn’t offer any new ideas and there’s the fallacy of it.

We don’t need a new idea there is an idea the idea called America and it’s still work. You want to. You want proof that it’s still work.

You want proof that it still works look around the world today who were they coughing they’re not — the former Soviet Union. They’re not — Russia they’re not even — China they are copying us — every step towards free enterprise. Millions of people all over the world are emerging from poverty millions of people.

The world are emerging from generational poverty because they were inspired by the American idea they may claim to hate us but they sure would like to BS. And the question — in the world that we believe our children. What will be the dominant country in the world what will be the light shining example for the world.

A country like the one I just described to — when China and other places or country like ours. That is what’s at stake. And I believe — I know that — make the right choice because I believe in my heart what I have always believed.

That it would give our people the opportunity. And free enterprises and and and and upward mobility they will do what they’ve always done. They will build and sustain a vibrant middle class and beyond.

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What a great speech by Rand Paul:

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) who is a prospective 2016 presidential candidate spoke at CPAC 2013 which kicked off today.  You can find the transcript of his speech and a video below.

TRANSCRIPT AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY:

I have a message for the President, a message that is loud and clear, a message that doesn’t mince words.

The message for the President is that no one person gets to decide the law, no one person gets to decide your guilt or innocence.

My question to the President was about more than just killing Americans on American soil.

My question was about whether Presidential power has limits.

Lincoln put it well when he wrote, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man, give him power.”

President Obama who seemed, once upon a time, to respect civil liberties, has become the President who signed a law allowing for the indefinite detention of an American citizen.

Indeed, a law that allows an American citizen to be sent to Guantanamo Bay without a trial.

President Obama defends his signing of the bill by stating that he has no intention of detaining any American citizen without a trial.

Likewise, he defended his possible targeted Drone strikes against Americans on American soil by indicating that he has no intention of doing so.

Well, my thirteen hour filibuster was a message to the President.

Good intentions are not enough.

The presidential oath of office states ‘I WILL protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution,’ NOT ‘I intend to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.’

Mr. President, good intentions are not enough. We want to know, will you or won’t you defend the Constitution?

Eisenhower wrote,

“How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?”

If we destroy our enemy but lose what defines our freedom in the process, have we really won?

If we allow one man to charge Americans as enemy combatants and indefinitely detain or drone them, then what exactly is it our brave young men and women are fighting for?

Montesquieu wrote that there can be no liberty if you combine the Executive and the Legislative branches. Likewise, there can be no justice if you combine the Executive and Judicial branch into one.

We separated arrest and accusation from trial and verdict for a reason. When Lewis Carroll’s white queen shouts sentence first, verdict afterwards, the reader’s response is supposed to be ‘But that would be absurd!’

In our country, the police can arrest, but only your peers can convict. We prize our Bill of Rights like no other country. Our Bill of Rights is what defines us and makes us exceptional.

To those who would dismiss this debate as frivolous, I say tell that to the heroic young men and women who have sacrificed their limbs and lives, tell it to the 6,000 parents whose kids died as American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, tell them that the Bill of Rights is no big deal.

Tell it to Sergeant J.D. Williams, of Auburn Kentucky, who sacrificed himself to save his fellow soldiers. Tell J.D., who lost both legs and an arm; tell him his sacrifice was great but that we had to suspend the Bill of Rights he fought for.

Yes, the filibuster was about drones, but also about much more. Do we have a Bill of Rights or not? Do we have a Constitution or not and will we defend it?

In his farewell speech in 1989, Ronald Reagan said: “As government expands, liberty contracts.”

He was right. Government cannot give us our liberty, our rights come from our Creator. But as government grows, liberty becomes marginalized. The collective takes precedent over the individual. Freedom shrinks.

And our government today is larger than it has ever been in the history of our country.

Everything that America has been, and everything we ever wish to be, is now threatened by the notion that you can have something for nothing, that you can have your cake and eat it too, that you can spend a trillion dollars every year that you don’t have.

The President seems to think we can keep adding to a $16 trillion debt. The President seems to think the country can continue to borrow $50,000 per second.

The President believes that we should just squeeze more money out of those who are working. He’s got it exactly backwards.

I’m here to tell you, what we need to do is leave more money in the pockets of those who earned it.

Look at how ridiculous Washington politicians have behaved over the sequester. The President did a big “woe is me” over a trillion dollar sequester that he endorsed and signed into law. Some Republicans joined him.

But the sequester didn’t even cut any spending. It just slowed the rate of growth. Even with the sequester, government will grow over $7 trillion over the next decade.

Only in Washington could an increase of $7 trillion in spending over a decade be called a cut.

After the sequester, it was announced that the White House would stop giving tours. Administration officials said that it was due to “cuts” imposed by the sequester.

Meanwhile the President found an extra $250 million to send to Egypt. You know, the country where mobs attacked our embassy, burned our flag, and chanted death to America.

You know, the country whose President recently stood by his spiritual leader, who called for death to Israel and all who support her.

I say-not a penny more to countries that burn our flag.

The President says he can’t find anything to cut except for White House tours.

Well what about the $3 million spent studying Monkeys on Meth. Does it really take $3 million to discover that monkeys, like humans, act crazy on Meth?

What about the $300,000 for a Robotic squirrel?  They wanted to study whether a squirrel that doesn’t wag its tail will be bitten by a rattlesnake.  Only problem, they couldn’t find a real squirrel to volunteer not to wag its tail.

Bottom line – a rattlesnake will bite the you-know-what out of a squirrel not wagging its tail.  Mr. President, maybe we could have cut robotic squirrels before white house tours.

For any of you college students looking for jobs, Uncle Sam’s got a job for you.   The pay is $5,000 per person.  The study is in Hawaii but the requirements are onerous —- you must like food.

The study is to develop a Menu for when we colonize mars.  Guess what a bunch of college students came up with……..Pizza.

You could cut just one of these programs and return to letting schoolchildren tour the White House.

This government is completely out-of-control. We desperately need a new course and new leadership.

The path forward for the Republican Party is rooted in respect for the Constitution and respect for the individual.

Part of that respect is allowing Americans to freely exercise one of their most basic rights, the right to bear arms.

You can’t protect the 2^nd Amendment though if you don’t have the Fourth Amendment.  If we are not secure in homes, if we are not secure in our persons and our papers, can we really believe that our right to bear arms will be secure?

We need to jealously guard all of our liberties.

The Facebook generation can detect falseness and hypocrisy a mile away. They are the core of the ‘leave me alone’ coalition.  They doubt that Social Security will be there for them.

They worry about jobs and money, rent and student loans.  They want leaders that won’t feed them a line of crap or sell them short. They aren’t afraid of individual liberty.

Ask them whether we should put a kid in jail for the nonviolent crime of drug use and you’ll hear a resounding no.

Ask them if they want to bail out Too-Big-To-Fail banks with their tax dollars.

And you’ll hear a hell no.

There is nothing conservative about bailing out Wall Street.

Likewise, there is nothing progressive about billion dollar loans to millionaires to build solar panels.

The Republican Party has to change—-by going forward to the classical and timeless ideas enshrined in our Constitution. When we understand that that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then we will become the dominant national party again.

It is time for us to revive Reagan’s law: For liberty to expand, government must now contract. For the economy to grow, government must get out of the way.

This month, I will propose a five-year balanced budget.

My budget eliminates the Department of Education, and devolves power and money back to the states where they belong.

With my five-year budget, millions of jobs would be created by cutting the corporate income tax in half, by creating a flat personal income tax of 17%, and by cutting the regulations that are strangling American businesses.

The only stimulus ever proven to work is leaving more money in the hands of those who earned it!

The Constitution must be our guide. For conservatives to win nationally, we must stand for something. We must stand on principle.

We must stand for something so powerful and so popular that it brings together people from the left and the right and the middle.

We need a Republican Party that shows up on the Southside of Chicago and shouts at the top of our lungs ‘We are the party of jobs and opportunity.  The GOP is the ticket to the middle class.’

The GOP of old has grown stale and moss-covered,——I don’t think we need to name any names here, do we??—-

Our party is encumbered by an inconsistent approach to freedom. The new GOP, the GOP that will win again, will need to embrace liberty in both the economic and personal sphere.

If we are going to have a Republican Party that can win, liberty needs to be the backbone of the GOP.

We must have a message that is broad. Our vision must be broad. And that vision must be based on freedom.

There are millions of Americans, young and old, native and immigrant, black, white and brown, who simply seek to live free, free to practice their religion, free to choose where they send their kids to school, free to choose their own healthcare, free to keep the fruit of their own labor, free to live without government constantly being on their back.

I will stand for them.

I will stand for you.

I will stand for our prosperity and our freedom.

And I ask everyone who values liberty to stand with me.

Thank you and God Bless America.

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I got a chance to visit with John Fund the last time he came to Little Rock to speak and he made a great case that there is voter fraud happening in recent times and something has to be done about it. Here is an article that shows how liberals are denying reality when they say we don’t need better voter ID laws.

There Is No Voter Fraud’ Myth Takes a Torpedo

We are constantly told by liberals that there is no voter fraud — or at least not any that involves voting at the polls. 

Well, the son of Representative Jim Moran, the Democrat who represents Virginia’s Washington suburbs, has just resigned as field director for his father’s campaign for essentially proving them wrong. Moran was caught by videographer James O’Keefe’s camera advising an undercover reporter on how to commit in-person voter fraud. The scheme involved forging utility bills that would satisfy Virginia’s voter-ID law and then rely on the assistance of Democratic lawyers stationed at the polls to make sure the votes were counted.

A leading Virginia liberal blog called “Not Larry Sabato” minced no words about Patrick Moran’s behavior: “No reason to sugarcoat this in any way, it is totally unacceptable,” was his conclusion. He then went on to say “it’s time for his dad to retire.”

Representative Moran, who has been in office for 22 years, is a rough-and-ready politician who has frequently embarrassed himself with politically incorrect comments and controversial positions. It will be interesting to see if his fellow Democrats stand with him now that his campaign has made it more difficult for them to repeat the tired claim that “there is no voter fraud.”

The 26-minute O’Keefe video begins with the undercover reporter approaching Moran at a Cosi restaurant in Arlington. The reporter tells Moran, whom he has never met, that he has a friend who has found a list of 100 Virginia residents who haven’t voted in the last three elections but are registered to vote.

After Moran finally understands that the goal is to use the list to cast fraudulent votes in the names of those non-voters, he explains how that could be done. He suggests creating fake utility bills, which would serve as a form of acceptable identification for voters. He warns that the state’s new voter-ID law will mean poll workers will be “cracking down” on possible voter fraud, but there is a way around the law.

“So, if they just have the utility bill or bank statement — bank statement would obviously be tough . . . but faking a utility bill would be easy enough,” Moran says. The two men then discuss how Microsoft Word can be used to manufacture a fake utility bill.

If there’s any trouble, Moran then advises, an Obama for America lawyer, or another Democratic lawyer working the polling place would be available to help:

“You’ll have somebody in house, that if they feel that what you have is legitimate, they’ll argue for you.”

Moran then helpfully invites the O’Keefe associate into the Arlington County Democratic Party’s office where he tells him he should contact the registered voters on his list to make sure they won’t be voting. One method he suggests is to impersonate a pollster and ask if they plan to vote.

Last April, a 22-year-old O’Keefe associate showed how easy it is to vote in the name of someone else at a polling place that doesn’t require ID by simply mentioning the name of attorney general Eric Holder, and then being offered his ballot. Now O’Keefe has shown just how easy it could be to commit in-person voter fraud, even with some form of ID law, by simply using Microsoft Word and manufacturing a utility bill.

Here’s hoping against hope that O’Keefe’s latest video will stir some in the media to engage in the kind of investigative journalism that is so lacking on voting issues. 

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