Editorial: Is Rubio the new face of “Progressivism”?

Florida has a penchant for growing and electing Republicans who morph into big government “progressives”. The most recent example is Marco Rubio. But he is not the first and certainly will not be the last.

Before Rubio there was Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist.

Jeb is the brother of George W. Bush, the “compassionate conservative” President. Compassionate conservative came to mean during Bush’s second term “progressive big government”. Remember it was former President  Bush who dramatically expanded Medicare (Part B) and bailed out the banks. Government stimulus is an ongoing program created by a Republican President and expanded under the current administration. G.W. Bush famously said, “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.” Jeb and G.W.’s father former President George H.W. Bush signed the Agenda 21 Treaty.

Charlie Crist soon after being elected governor adopted California’s carbon emission standards by issuing an Executive Order imposing them on all Floridians. Crist morphed from being a Republican, to a Progressive Independent and is now a registered Progressive Democrat. It is expected Crist will challenge Governor Rick Scott in 2014.

Jeb has visions of following in his father’s and brother’s footsteps. He has embraced President Obama’s Common Core education initiative, which will enrich Jeb and his family. In September of this year he will award the Liberty Medal to Hillary Clinton. Jeb will present the award on the eve of the deadly Benghazi attack in Libya. The Liberty medal is awarded by one of Jeb’s many foundations.

Rubio willingly became the face of the progressive goal of amnesty with the passage of the immigration bill this week. There is a pattern. While Rubio was Florida Speaker of the House he supported the REAL ID and failed to strengthen immigration laws in Florida. Many were concerned that Rubio would be pro-amnesty but he reassured Floridians that he would not during his 2010 campaign. In 2010 Rubio stated, “’an earned path to citizenship,’ such as his opponent Gov. Charlie Crist, former President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain had advocated, was nothing more than a ‘code for amnesty’.”

Fast forward to this week. Greg Gutfeld, co-host of The Five on Fox News, said, “For politicians [like Rubio] immigration is more about bodies than borders.” Republicans, like Rubio, are becoming more and more progressive in their views and now actions. Many conservatives say the Republicans have compromised their principles on key issues, which according to Slade O’Brien from Florida Americans for Prosperity, “Is the art of losing slowly.”

Today, Florida Republicans are breeding the next generation of progressive politicians. Heritage Action for America scorecard gives a lower than 60% rating to six Florida Republicans in Congress, including Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL 13), who leads the Florida delegation and sits on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Another of the upcoming “new progressives” in Florida is Senator Nancy Detert who was given an “F” rating on the Americans for Prosperity legislative scorecard.

Is seems to more and more Americans that both Democrats and Republicans are now two squads on the same team. The only difference is who has the ball.

Gone are conservative men of conscience like former Senator Barry Goldwater, American Politician and Senator, 1909-1998. It was Goldwater who wrote:

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

While Florida Republicans may embrace Ronald Reagan, and declare they are conservatives during their campaigns, it is their actions once elected that make their true beliefs clear. Is the public conscience in decline and Republican politicians just a reflection of the “new, new”; or are they the proximate cause of the moral and cultural decline in America?

That is the question.