Rubio Campaign Press Release - The World Has Changed And Here's The Proof

The rise of dozens of developed economies means we have more competition for jobs than ever before. Yet our tax code makes it more expensive to invest in America in comparison to our competition. Rapid advances in technology and the globalization of the economy have meant that many of the jobs that once made the American Dream possible are now being outsourced or automated. Overall, our regulations are causing us to lose our advantage in innovation.

Many of our low-skill jobs once paid enough to make it to the middle class. But now many of them pay wages that have not kept up with the cost of living. Today's better-paying jobs require higher education or skills training, but we have an outdated, expensive, inaccessible education system that fails to graduate students with skills that prepare them for work. Older students who have to work full-time and raise a family struggle to access a higher education system that wasn't built for them. And a college education has become more expensive than ever, leaving millions of young Americans with massive student loans.

Underlying these economic changes are societal ones. To succeed in life, you don't just need skills and a good job. You need to have values like hard work, discipline and self-control. No one is born with these values. They have to be taught by families and faith. But today, we face a serious erosion of family life in America. Millions of children are growing up in unstable homes in which they are not taught the values necessary for personal and economic success.

The result is a pervasive — and growing — sense of insecurity. Instead of adjusting to the realities of the new era, however, our leaders are doubling down on policies and institutions designed in the middle of the last century. Our taxes, our schools, our regulations, our immigration system and our poverty and retirement programs — they're all relics of the last century. They were conceived and created at a time when America faced limited international competition, at a time when, even with no formal education, you could find a low-skill job that paid a middle-class wage. But this is not the world we live in anymore.

Liberals want to spend more money on the ideas of yesterday. Some conservatives want to keep the ideas of yesterday and just spend less on them, as if programs that aren't working will somehow be made to function if only their budgets are cut. But neither of these approaches will ever work.

No matter how much we spend on the ideas of the last century, or how much we streamline some of them, they are never going to help us reclaim the American Dream for all.

America needs leaders who understand the new world we live in and who will promote and implement new ideas for a new era. We can't solve our 21st Century challenges by simply investing into 20th century solutions.