It's impossible to walk a block in Miami, in Los Angeles, San Antonio without running into someone who is being deeply impacted by a broken legal immigration system.
— Marco Rubio
And so, whether they came here on the Mayflower, on a slave ship, or on an airplane from Havana, we are all descendants of the men and women who built here the nation that saved the world.
Americans chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.
I would say to you that Americans of Hispanic descent want desperately to give their children the chances they never had.
I don't really like labels in politics, but I will gladly accept the label of conservatism.
Americans believe with all their heart, the vast majority of them, and the vast majority of Floridians, that the United States of America is simply the single greatest nation in all of human history.
Of course there are critics who believe that no matter what we do, the Florida dream is over. They claim that we must accept the idea that inevitably our future is one of high taxes and big government.
A sense that with the blessings that God bestowed upon this land, came the responsibility to make the world a better place.
You know what the fastest growing religion in America is? Statism. The growing reliance on government.
The Hispanic community understands the American Dream and have not forgotten what they were promised - that in the U.S., a free market system, allows us all to succeed economically, achieve stability and security for your family and leave your children better off than yourselves.
That thought process that somehow other people have to be worse off in order for you to be better off does not work. People get on boats people jump fences to get away from that kind of thought process.
We've never been people that go around and confront people that have been financially successful and say, 'We hate you. We envy you because of how well you're doing.'
If my house was on fire, I can't compromise about which part of the house I'm going to save. You save the whole house or it will all burn down. We either save this country or we do not.
Let me start by saying that I do not enjoy nor relish the partisan role of attack dog. I never found any fun in that. I don't think it's constructive. I don't intend to become that here in the Senate.
If I were running to be somebody, there are a lot of easier sombodies to be. After all, running against the incumbent governor of your own party in your home state is not the next logical step in a political life.
You cannot do anything without God. It's a profound and elemental truth. Not, you cannot do most things without God. You will not be able to do anything that you want, truly, in fulfillment, without God.
When you talk about entitlement programs, it's not just about - it's not about cutting those programs. It is about saving those programs. Those programs are on a path of fiscal unsustainability.
I challenge the Republican nominees and all Republicans to not just be the anti-illegal immigration party. That's not who we are and that's not who we should be we should be the pro-legal immigration party.
And yet, there are still people in American politics who, for some reason, cling to this belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people who immigrate here from there.
Let's stop big government energy mandates like cap-and-trade, and instead trust the American innovator to make us energy independent.
The second truism that we must understand is that poverty does not create our social problems, our social problems create our poverty.
Conservatism is not about leaving people behind. Conservatism is about empowering people to catch up, to give them the tools at their disposable that make it possible for them to access all the hope, all the promise, all the opportunity that America offers. And our programs to help them should reflect that.
But those who believe that what our people desire is big government are living in a state of delusion.
We need transparency in government spending. We need to put each government expenditure online so every Floridian can see where their tax money is being spent.
The Second Amendment is a constitutional right. I didn't make it up, the Republican Party didn't make it up. It's in the Constitution. I think it's just as important as any of the other rights in our constitution.
You know those movies where the people in the audience are screaming, 'Don't go in that door!' because you know the killer is there? Well, it is the same thing with this debt. We know how this ends.
But let me tell you what happens when regulations go too far, when they seem to exist only for the purpose of justifying the existence of a regulator. It kills the people trying to start a business.
My parents were working class folks. My dad was a bartender for most of his life, my mom was a maid and a cashier and a stock clerk at WalMart. We were not people of financial means in terms of significant financial means. I always told them, 'I didn't always have what I wanted. I always had what I needed.' My parents always provided that.
It's not in our nature. Americans have never been a people that drive through a nice neighborhood and say, 'Oh, I hate the people who live in these nice houses.'
I am prepared to discuss the things that I believe we need to do not just to raise the debt limit. Raising the debt limit is the easiest thing. That's one vote away. The hard thing is to show the world we are serious about putting our spending in order so we can show people we'll able to pay our bills down the road.
I would love nothing more than compromise. But I would say to you that compromise that's not a solution is a waste of time.
People have a right to be a Democrat. People have a right to be wrong. I know they're the same thing.
This is the greatest society in all of human history, the greatest country ever. Many of the decisions being made in Washington today by both parties are threatening that greatness. And if we stay on this road we're on right now, our children are going to be the first Americans ever to inherit a diminished country.
But here's what I would tell people of my generation. I turn 40 this year. There isn't going to be a Social Security. There isn't going to be a Medicare when you retire. Forget about what your benefit is going to look like. There isn't going to be one if we don't make some reforms to save that program now.
The No. 1 issue in the Hispanic American community is 'How do I leave my children better off than myself?
Americans chose a free enterprise system designed to provide a quality of opportunity, not compel a quality of results. And that is why this is only place in the world where you can open up a business in the spare bedroom of your home.
Now, look, it's true, Americans do want leaders that will come to Washington, D.C. and work together to get things done, but that comes with a very important caveat, it depends what they're trying to do.
Every nation on the Earth that embraces market economics and the free enterprise system is pulling millions of its people out of poverty. The free enterprise system creates prosperity, not denies it.
I tell people all the time that I was born and raised in Ronald Reagan's America.
For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for.
We will either bring on another American century, or we are doomed to witness America's decline.
We can not continue to allow this over reliance on government to replace the cornerstone institution that has made the American experience possible.
But since her earliest days, America has inspired people from all over the world. Inspired them with the hope that one day their own countries would be one like this one.
You know who a complicated tax code kills? The guy or gal trying to start a business out of the spare bedroom of their home. So we've got to simplify our tax code.
I don't ever remember them telling us or teaching us that the only way we could be more successful is if other people were less successful. They never inculcated the belief that somehow, in order for us to climb the ladder, other people have to come down from the ladder.
And that is that we have never been: a nation of haves and have-nots. We are a nation of haves and soon-to-haves, of people who have made it and people who will make it. And that's who we need to remain.
And I can tell you that history will back up what I'm about to say and that is that there is no government run by conservatives, Republicans, put whoever you want there, if you give government the opportunity to spend more money than it has, it will do it. It will do it every time.
You know that big government doesn't hurt big corporations. They've got the best lawyers and accountants in the world. You know who gets destroyed by big government? It's the little guys.
I always tell people I'm running against two Democrats, one that admits it and one that does not.
I'm going to be working the next 25 or 30 years. People like me, if we want, number one, for no benefit reductions for our parents and our grandparents, number two, for the system to survive and exist for us, and, more importantly, number three, for the system to exist for us children, we are going to have to make reforms to that system.
