President Barack Obama's economic policies are failing because his administration is using outdated solutions that are more reminiscent of those practiced in previous centuries, Sen. Marco Rubio told "Fox & Friends."
At a fundraiser last month, Obama delivered a speech touting gains in the economy and claiming, "We are better off as a country than we were when I came into office." And,
again on Thursday, the president said that, while he wasn't on the ballot in the fall midterm elections, "every single one" of his policies were.
"What this president and this White House offer are 20th century solutions — 19th century solutions that didn't even work well in the 19th and 20th centuries," the Florida Republican said Friday.
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Rubio maintained proof of Obama's failed economic policies was that "none of these [Democratic] candidates are campaigning with him" or promoting the administration's agenda.
"Why aren't they campaigning on these things? Why aren't they bragging about Obamacare in their ads? Instead, they want their campaigns to be about all sorts of other issues," he said.
The United States should be enjoying "an American century" that included job creation and holding onto manufacturing industries rather than "forcing companies to stay here in this country," Rubio said, adding that Obama's policies were keeping the U.S. from "fulfilling our potential as a nation or as a people."
"This 21st century is an exciting time. We are not taking full advantage of all of the opportunities of this new era. And, a lot of that is because of broad policies of big government that this president and his allies in the Senate have pursued," he said.
American families have had to "dip into their retirement savings," Rubio said, and students were stuck with debt because they "owe a bunch of money, but can't find a job with a degree that they borrowed all this money to pay for."
"They're stuck in jobs that make $11, $9, $10 an hour, and have no way of making more money, because either those jobs are not being created or they don't have a cost-effective way of acquiring the skills they need for a better paying job," he said.
Rubio said running for president in 2016 was "something I'll have to think about," and maintained his decision would not be influenced by "whoever else is running," including former Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush.
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