Well, Obama asks for much higher spending every year. Republicans just don’t give it to him.
He can claim credit all he wants and you can give him credit all you want. You’re just conceding that keeping spending flat the last few years was good policy. Works for me.
Good thing the nation’s economy is much simpler to grasp, then.
Bullshit, you have been milking this people for votes and money year after year, election after election, decade after decade because without them you are not a party knowing full well absolutely everything they want and stand for is full idiocy that would destroy the country or simply plain hateful towards anyone who isn’t like them. This is YOUR fault mystery congressman, not the people who finally riled them up enough to take over.
The problem isn’t the ability to grasp, and nationally we tend to be just as immature. There’s not enough money to pay for what we want, so we charge it. And the idea of cutting anything sends up howls of protest, even though we’re borrowing to fund it.
Rubio did pay back the money he charged, so it’s not a huge deal. Plus, as always, it’s the coverup, not the crime. Rubio has been completely forthcoming about this scandal. He released all the statements. Guess who would hold onto the statements for dear life and say they were nobody’s business and people are always out to get her and… oh wait, I gave it away.
Wait. Rubio’s real actions don’t look so bad compared to Hillary’s theoretical ones? The things he did are pretty small compared to the stuff she might have done?
Rubio’s transparency speaks well of him. He did something wrong, he owned up to it, he gives the media all the information they ask for. That was the contrast. He doesn’t act like someone with something to hide.
It took him** 5 years **to release these documents! Sure sounds like acting like there’s something to hide.
If there was something to hide, he’d be hiding something. He didn’t release the documents because he wasn’t under a great deal of scrutiny before. It barely came up during his Senate run. Now it’s a thing so Rubio is cooperating with the media 100%.
If only all candidates would do the same.
“Hey, I took someone else’s money without asking permission, in order to support my lifestyle. But I eventually paid it back, so no big deal, right?”
Bullshit. If you take someone else’s money without permission, it’s still stealing, even if you make restitution later.
You keep saying that, but it’s bullshit. The crime is what matters. The reason the coverup matters is that it makes it hard to determine the truth about the crime, and so in our legal system, it’s called obstructing justice, which is a serious crime of its own. I think it was the prosecutor in the Scooter Libby trial who compared it with throwing sand in the eyes of the refs.
To go back to Watergate, which is the classic for-instance, ordering burglaries is a serious crime, and as best as I can tell, we don’t know who ordered the Plumbers to break into the DNC office at the Watergate, or the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. If it had come out in July 1972 that Haldeman and Ehrlichman had ordered those burglaries, they’d have gone directly to jail. But instead they covered up the crime, obstructing justice, and went to jail a bit later instead.
The actual crime matters. If the details of the crime had been known from the beginning, most of the same people would have gone to prison.
Another classic for-instance was Clinton’s alleged perjury about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. One of the reasons most Americans thought it was ridiculous to go after him over this was that there was no underlying crime - Ken Starr & Co. had been out to humiliate him over this affair, and he lied to avoid embarrassment, not to cover up a felony.
The actual crime matters. If what’s being covered up is no crime, that matters too, at least to the public.
Much like Clinton’s private email account, it wasn’t specifically against the rules and many others in the party had the same practice. If we’re not applying a double standard, Rubio is not only in the clear, but gets bonus points for being transparent.
If the crime is serious, sure. If Marco Rubio killed somebody, confessing wouldn’t help. What Rubio actually did was a pretty minor offense as far as politicians go. Your argument seems to suggest that politicians should always hide misconduct and resist calls by the media to answer questions and provide documentation. Because obviously there’s nothing to be gained by doing so. If the crime isn’t a big deal, then hiding it isn’t a big deal. If the crime is a big deal, then you have to hide it.
Fortunately, voters don’t see things as you do. Politicians that will lie to cover up little things will certainly lie to cover up big things. We’re all human. Rubio succumbed to a loose interpretation of the rules for the sake of his own convenience. But at no point did he hide his conduct, either from the party before it became a national story, or from the media once it did. Nor has he claimed, “It was allowed, I followed the rules.” His conduct during this scandal has been a sharp contrast to his likely opponent’s.
For taking stuff that wasn’t his.
Voters understand that. There may not have been any rule that said “you can’t use this money for personal uses,” but that’s the sort of thing that normally doesn’t need saying.
Being belatedly transparent about it, yeah, that makes all the difference. :dubious:
At any rate, the voters will in due course tell us what the voters think. There’s limited utility in arguing about that.
Apparently Rubio’s quite the big spender with other people’s money. Back in 2005, when he wasn’t a Presidential candidate, wasn’t Senator, when he was a mere state legislator - not even speaker of the Florida House yet - he charged more than $5,000 during his seven-night stay at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas.
We’ll see, but this is the sort of thing that, IME, people can relate to.
Sheldon Adelson wouldn’t comp him? Now there’s a show of confidence.
In 2005, Sheldon Adelson probably hadn’t heard of Rubio yet.
Which reminds me, in 2002, my wife and I stayed in a pretty fancy hotel, not the Venetian, but in Venice. Italy. And it ‘only’ cost us $350 a night. And Venice isn’t cheap, since it’s a popular destination, and land is somewhat at short supply there.
So the thing here is that sure, this wasn’t a personal expense, but he did take advantage of the fact that someone else was picking up the tab to live the high life. And at >$700 a night, it should have been quite the high life indeed. Not exactly optimal stewardship of other people’s money.
You didn’t mention that Rubio paid 30% of that Las Vegas bill out of his own pocket.
And the other 70%?
‘He only stole 70% of the total spent on the trip’ is not a great defense IMO.
The other 70% was political business expense. He didn’t steal anything.
Did he find the cheapest rate for his political business trip hotel room, or did he live large off of someone else’s dime? But then it wasn’t his money, so why be fiscally responsible with it right?
