Marco Rubio Remarks at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. as Prepared for Delivery

Marco Announces New Ideas to Help Working Families

Today, at 9:25am ET, Marco Rubio will talk about his ideas to promote strong families and values at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Included in his remarks is a new proposal to encourage paid family leave in America without harmful government mandates (see bolded section below).

Below are Marco Rubio's remarks, as prepared for delivery:

It has now been over five months since we began this campaign. And at virtually every event we do, I meet someone or see something that reminds me of my parents.

They were both born to poor families in Cuba – into a society like most in the world, where your future depends on who your parents are.

My mother was one of seven sisters born to a father who, because he was disabled, struggled his whole life to find and keep jobs that allowed him to provide for his daughters.

My father had it even tougher. His mother died when he was only nine. The day after her funeral, he went to work on the streets of Havana, and would work for the next 70 years of his life.

After my parents married, they wanted better for themselves and their own children. So in 1956, they came to America.
Their early years here were not easy. But in time, they found good jobs. My father worked as a bartender, and my mother as a cashier, a maid and a stock clerk at K-Mart. They earned enough to buy a home, raise a family and retire with security.

And even though their jobs often required them to leave home before dawn and come back after bedtime, they were able to be there in the most important moments of their kids’ lives, to provide for our needs, and to teach us the values we would need to be successful.

I am often reminded throughout this campaign that I do not come from privilege. And if by “privilege” they mean wealth and power, then that’s certainly true.

Yet I nonetheless believe that I am a child of extraordinary privilege. Because I am a citizen of the single greatest nation in all of human history – a nation founded on the idea that every person has the right to go as far as their talent and work will take them, that even the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same opportunities as someone born into wealth or power.

And I am privileged because I was raised with something increasingly rare – I was raised in a stable home by two married parents who loved each other and loved their children, who were an active presence in my life, and who raised me to believe that if I lived with the right values and with a faith in God, there was nothing I could not accomplish.

Today, the American Dream that my family achieved is slipping out of reach for too many.

Our economy has fundamentally transformed since my parents’ time. Rapid advances in technology have replaced old jobs with new ones, and globalization has forced us into competition with dozens of other nations for jobs and innovation.
Yet while our economy is transforming, our government is not.


We have a political class in this country that refuses to toss out its old way of thinking – the way of thinking that says we need guardians in government to protect us from ourselves. That to help someone climb up the economic ladder we have to pull someone else down. And that government, not family, is the most important institution in society.

Our outdated leaders fail to recognize the changes that it will take to seize the promise of the new economy; and as a result, that promise is passing us by. Businesses are dying faster than they are forming; the costs of every day life are soaring while wages remain the same; and too many parents feel as if the longer and harder they work, the further they and their children fall behind.
Now, let me be clear about something. Even with our many problems, America is still the best equipped to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of this new century.
 
Ask yourself this: Is there any country you would rather be? Is there any country you would trade places with?
Or here’s another way to think about it: When was the last time you heard of a boatload of American refugees arriving on the shores of another country?

So, yes, America is still special. But recent years have proven that our exceptionalism is not self-sustaining – that we didn’t become special by accident, and we aren’t going to stay that way without effort.

We’re not going to stay that way by looking to the same leaders and the same ideas that have led us to this point.

I believe what the American people are looking for is clear. They are looking for leaders who understand the changes that have occurred in our economy, who understand the unique challenges facing our families in this century, who will come to Washington and fight the status quo that is holding us back, and in its place will offer a clear alternative.

Now, the political class sees this sentiment, and they try to make sense of it all. But they can't. Because never has the political class or the mainstream media that covers them been more out of touch with the American people than they are today.

Just look at the so-called “deal” with Iran, which is really just a series of concessions to an enemy of the United States. The American people recognize how bad the deal is. They oppose it by an overwhelming 2 to 1 margin. Yet Washington still can’t or won’t stop it.

And the issues like this are numerous, and they are so big, so consequential, so generational, that people cannot help but ask: How can it be that we’ve sent a Republican majority to Congress, yet they still aren’t able to stop our country from sliding in the wrong direction?

The answer is that too many leaders in both parties have fallen out of touch with America. And this is exactly why, after almost five years in the Senate, I’ve had enough. I’ve decided to run for president because I’ve realized that none of the problems I got elected to solve are going to be solved if we keep promoting the same people to higher and higher ranks within our government.
Here’s the simple truth: To set a new precedent in Washington, we need a new president in Washington.

We need a president who understands that this economic transformation we’ve undergone is a perfect chance to embrace and reinvigorate the free enterprise economy, not abandon it.

A president who will fight Washington special interests in both parties, not be co-opted by them.

… who will take clear and even unpopular positions to confront the greatest threats to our nation.

Most of all, we need a president who will put their left hand on the Bible and right hand in the air, and promise to uphold the entire Constitution – including the right of religious liberty, including the right to bear arms, and including the inalienable right to life. It's been eight years since we've had a president willing to stand by that promise… I will.

When I am president, I will empower our people rather than our government. And I will do that by recognizing that you cannot have strong people without strong families.

What happens in your house and what happens in my house can be every bit as important to the future of this country as what happens in the White House.

But too often, Washington has tried to compete with family rather than support it. It has punished marriage, the foundation of family life, by taxing married couples more than singles. It has made it harder for parents to keep what they earn. And it has challenged the values and supplanted the faith organizations that have provided centuries of empowerment to our people.

I have a plan to reform our government in a way that empowers families to thrive in the modern economy, and a major component of this will be reforms to family leave policy that I’d like to introduce for the first time here today.

I said a moment ago that one of the reasons I am so privileged is that I was born to two parents who were able to be a constant presence in the lives of their children.

This was an enormous advantage for me growing up. And that’s why, now that I’m a parent, I struggle with the demands of the public life that I’ve chosen. It pains me anytime I have to miss a volleyball practice or a football game or a field trip because of work.
This struggle is not unique to me. It’s a problem that almost every parent in America faces.

And the reason this hurts us is because we know that the greatest gift parents can give their children is time spent together. The values only parents can teach, the love only parents can provide, the encouragement only parents can offer cannot come via text or phone call. At least not completely. It has to come through time spent together.

And that is why one of the greatest threats to family today is that too many Americans have to choose between being there for their children in times of great need, or meeting the basic financial needs of their families.

Like so many fundamental problems, this one can be traced, in part, back to outdated policies from Washington.

Current law mandates that employers offer twelve weeks of unpaid leave to workers with certain family or medical issues – like a newborn child in need of care, an elderly parent with declining health, or a personal health crisis. But this has proven insufficient, because taking unpaid leave is simply not a viable financial option for many Americans.

Most of our current leaders, including Hillary Clinton, stick to their outdated ways of thinking. They say the only way to solve this problem is to raise taxes, grow government, and place crippling requirements on private companies. I don’t need to tell anyone here why this wouldn’t work. It’s the same reason ObamaCare hasn’t worked.

Our policies should help workers, not cost them their jobs.

I believe we can fix this problem by creatively applying our free enterprise principles in a way that encourages businesses to choose to offer more paid family leave.

To do this, I will provide a limited 25% non-refundable tax credit to any business that offers between four and twelve weeks of paid leave. For instance, if you are offered $1,600 in paid leave for four weeks while you take care of your newborn, which would be the equivalent of about $10 an hour, your employer could claim a tax credit for $400.

This won’t solve every scheduling conflict between work and family life. No policy can. But it will help ensure that our people don’t have to sit behind a desk while the most profound moments of their lives pass them by. And it will help our businesses expand and create new jobs by allowing them to keep more of their money rather than send it to Washington.

Conservatives are already fighting hard on this issue. Senator Deb Fischer has been a leader on family leave reform, and I’m glad to join her efforts as one way to address the problem. Unfortunately, our current president prefers not to sign legislation that is commonsense, so these efforts will likely be something I need to take up as president.

Doing so will be a step toward reclaiming the American Dream in this century. But it will only be a step. Of course, people cannot be concerned about family leave if they do not have a good-paying job to take leave from.

So we also need our next president to recognize an important fact that no one in Washington today seems to understand: Politicians don’t create jobs; the American people create jobs.

We need a president who stops placing our people’s faith in our government, and starts placing our government’s faith in our people.
So one way we’ll know that I’ve done the right things as president is that at the end of my term, we won’t be talking about Washington. We’ll be too busy discussing the extraordinary achievements of everyday Americans. In 2020, I want to be able to say:
We made our business tax code globally competitive, repealed and replaced ObamaCare, placed a cap on regulations, and made our country the best place in the world to create jobs…

And as a result, our people are creating thousands of businesses, millions of new high-paying jobs, and their innovations are once again driving the progress of the world.

I want to be able to say: We reformed our higher education system to make it affordable and accessible to every American…
And as a result, our people are earning degrees that empower them to move from jobs paying $10 an hour to jobs paying $70,000 a year. Millions are beginning to emerge from the shadow of student debt. And high schoolers are graduating with certifications to immediately enter good-paying careers.

I want to be able to say: We secured our border first, then reformed our legal immigration system to base it on what a person can contribute to our economy, not whether they have a family member living here; and we’ve done what we had to do to save Social Security and Medicare without changing them for current seniors…

And as a result, our people are growing our economy at a historic rate, our deficits are finally beginning to dwindle, and the national debt is being brought under control so that it is no longer threatening to take away everything that makes America special.

I want to be able to say: We’ve defended religious freedom; supported the right of our people to not just hold traditional views, but to express them; and we’ve reformed the tax code to encourage marriage rather than punish it, and make it easier for parents to afford the costs of raising children…
And as a result, our families have found financial security, they’re raising strong children with strong values, and they’re instilling in their kids all the hope in the future of America that our parents instilled in us.

This is what I want us to be talking about in 2020 – the accomplishments of our people… not Washington.

But you know, there’s one more important point that needs to be made – one that transcends policy and politics altogether. No candidate for president can claim to stand on the side of our people if they do not believe every person has a right to exist.

And that is why the issue of life is more than political or policy-related. It is a definitional issue about the kind of country we want to be. In a world where life is increasingly not valued, where people are summarily discarded, America must stand for the belief that all life is worthy of protection, because all life comes from God.

Let me just close by saying this.

For many of us who were born and raised in this country, including me, it's sometimes easy to forget how special America really is. But I was raised by people who knew what it was like to lose their country, who understood how different America is from the rest of the world.

They taught me, by word and by deed, that what makes America great is not that we have more rich people than anybody else. What makes America great is that dreams impossible elsewhere are possible here. And why is that? Because of the choices the people who came before us made.

Almost every other country in the world chose to have the government run the economy.

In those countries, those who can influence government keep winning, and everybody else stays the same. The employee never becomes the employer, the small business can never compete with a big business, and no matter how hard your parents work or how many sacrifices they make, if you weren't born into the right family in those countries, there's only so far you can go.

Americans before us have chosen something very different. They chose individual liberty. They chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.

And yet, there are still people in American politics who cling to the belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people immigrate here.

Now, they have the right to believe whatever they want, but I do not have that option. You see, I'm one generation removed from a very different life.

My parents came to America with virtually nothing, no knowledge of English, no money, no friends. Only the strong determination to provide their children all the opportunities they never had.

They never achieved wealth or influence, but their hard work opened doors for their children that had been closed for them. Everything that I have accomplished – everything I ever will accomplish – I owe to God, to my parents' sacrifices, and to the United States of America. Period.

To me, my parents’ story is the very essence of the American miracle. It is a story that is rare in the world, but common here. We are all but a generation or two removed from someone who made our future the purpose of their lives.

Now it is our turn. This election is a choice about what kind of America we leave to our children.

The final verdict on our generation will be written by Americans who have not yet been born. Let them write that we made the right choice, that in the early years of this century, faced with troubling and uncertain times, there were those who believed the great American story had run its course.

But we did not agree. Fear did not lead us to abandon our liberty. We fought for and held on to those things that made us exceptional.

And because we did, there was still one place in the world where the individual was more important than the state.

Because we did, there was still one place in the world where who you come from does not determine how far you go.

Because we did, we didn’t just restore the American Dream, we extended it to reach more families than ever before.

And because we did, for at least one generation more, the American miracle lived on.

Thank you.