What Works

Remember him? Once upon a time, he was supposed to deliver comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). Instead, he ended up abandoning his own bill. And since he let CIR die on the vine on Capitol Hill, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) has tried hard to win back the 21st Century Know Nothing support he lost when he showed actual interest in advancing CIR.

So now, Senator Rubio is trying to win back the hearts & minds of the G-O-TEA base by advocating "conservative solutions to poverty". So what are his preferred "conservative solutions to poverty"? Oh, he just wants to move the jobless around and dissolve the national social safety net. Say what?!

Because Senator Rubio and a few other Congressional Republicans wanted to "look compassionate" while opposing a badly needed extension of longer term unemployment insurance (UI), they're now claiming they just want "more effective policies to actually put people back to work". Here's the problem with their claim: their preferred policies don't actually work. By simply cutting off people and need and hoping "someone else" steps in to rescue them, we only risk drowning them in a sea of poverty & despair.

You know what does work in reducing poverty and helping people get back to work? That's right, the social safety net does. Oh, and so do unions. So there's also that. (Sorry, anti-worker "TEA" drinking politicians.)

Funny enough, most Americans get this. Even Senator Dean Heller (R) seems to get the UI part of this equation. (Keep in mind that broken non-digital clocks are correct twice a day.) So why not just stick to what works?

That's what we'd really like to ask "TEA" sipping politicians on Capitol Hill today. If Marco Rubio and his Republican "leaders" truly care about ending poverty and putting people back to work, they must first recognize what works. And then, they actually need to implement policies that work.