Marco Rubio points out that there's 'no evidence whatsoever' that the GOP tax cut 'massively' benefited American workers

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 30 April 2018

Marco Rubio, once the ultimate principled conservative, has found himself an awkward fit in President Trump's Republican Party. The Florida senator's shining beacon of diverse conservatism was dimmed after he crassly insulted Trump on stage during the Republican primaries in 2016, and he has been clawing his way back ever since.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Economist, Rubio reflected on the mistakes he made during the campaign, saying that while he "spent a tremendous amount of time focused on the opportunities I had as the son of a bartender and a maid" — a well-worn backstory he has used to illustrate his humble roots — "I didn't spend nearly enough time talking about what the bartender and the maid face today."

Rubio is determined not to repeat his mistake. The Economist notes that Rubio's economic ideas "are unclear" still, but one thing he appears to know for sure is that the much-vaunted tax bill his party passed late last year hasn't lived up to the hype:

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Mr Rubio's proposal, to double the tax credit to $2,000 per child and pay for it by making a small increase to the corporate rate his party wanted, was decried by some Republicans as socialism. [...] "There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they're going to take the money they're saving and reinvest it in American workers," he says. "In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there's no evidence whatsoever that the money's been massively poured back into the American worker." [The Economist]

Rubio did eventually support the bill — in exchange for a "watered-down version" of his child tax credit, The Economist notes, which still "excluded the poorest families." Read more about Rubio's economic plans at The Economist, or read why Rubio is in a particularly difficult position within the GOP here at The Week.

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Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.