Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio may be the youngest politician running for the White House this election season, but he still turned out substantial crowds at three events in the metro Tuesday and Wednesday. Rubio made stops in Des Moines, Windsor Heights, and Urbandale as part of his three-day tour in the first-in-the-nation state.
Before touching down in Iowa on Tuesday, Rubio laid out his economic policy plan at an event in Chicago earlier that day. Some of his goals are to reform Social Security and Medicaid programs, as well as restructure higher education opportunities. The Republican candidate also outlined those policies at his metro events.
“What’s driving our national debt is Social Security and Medicare, two programs that are important to our country and that I support,” said Rubio. “But both programs are going bankrupt, and unless we do something about it, they will cease to exist.”
Rubio said people his age and younger will have to work longer and retire later in order to make up for the two programs’ financial burden.
“The next president of the United States will not be able to serve eight years without confronting that problem,” said Rubio.
At the Westside Conservative Club breakfast meeting in Urbandale, Rubio took questions on the debt, as well as how he would bring in minority votes to his campaign.
“I think everything I have outlined matters to all Americans,” said Rubio. “There’s this notion that somehow Americans from another racial background are different. They don’t have a different tax code. They don’t have a different regulatory code. One of the things we need to begin accepting in this country is that we are all Americans.”
Rubio comes from a Cuban background himself, but said he doesn’t separate minorities from his campaign focus.
“We all have to share this piece of land together,” said Rubio. “But I will say this: what the last eight years has exposed is what a myth is this idea is that the left and liberals are the friends of the people who are struggling everyday.”
One audience member also asked Rubio how he differentiates himself from being compared to a young Barack Obama, who was also a young senator running for president eight years ago.
“He did serve in the state legislature as I did as a minority, and he did serve in the Senate for a couple of years before running for president,” said Rubio. “But this president is not a failure for having been in the Senate – he has been a failure because he has failed on the key principles of presidential leadership.”
Rubio will also be speaking at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames on July 18th, along with eight other GOP presidential candidates.
