For a peek into the mindset of Sen. Marco Rubio, just review what he was up to in the wee hours of Friday morning, when the Senate considered scores of amendments to the body’s major budget resolution for the year.
The Republican from West Miami, Fla., who is expected to announce his presidential campaign within two weeks, prepared two dozen amendments for consideration to the Senate’s budget resolution. The late-night flurry of action on amendments is known on Capitol Hill as vote-a-rama.
The resolution passed, and soon after, the Senate finished its business for the week, adjourning at 4:24 a.m. Friday and heading off for a two-week recess.
Rubio’s amendments dove into policies both foreign and domestic, with a big emphasis on higher education policy. His amendments showed his interest in boosting defense spending and supporting Israel, as well as a bent toward the helping students preparing to pay for college and retirees surviving on their Social Security.
Most amendments offered last week weren’t brought up for a vote before the full Senate. Even if they had been, they are essentially symbolic: Because of the way the congressional budget process works, the resolution passed by the Senate is merely a blueprint for actual spending levels, which are set later during the appropriations process.
But while amendments tacked on to the budget resolution carry no weight of law, they can become part of any campaign – by candidate or opponent – and they do offer a sense of where a politician stands.
For Rubio’s part, spokeswoman Brooke Sammon said in an email, “Sen. Rubio introduced amendments last week to help strengthen our budget and put forward policies to ensure more Americans can achieve security and prosperity in the 21st century.”
A review of the amendments Rubio offered to the budget resolution match many of the themes he has pursued in his Senate career, discussed in speeches and written in his recently released book, “American Dreams.”
Darrell West, vice president of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a center-left Washington think tank, said the budget votes last week were interesting for what they revealed about candidate strategies.
Rubio, he said, “offered numerous amendments to position himself on the responsible side of budget-making. He wants people to see him as presidential timber and someone adept at dealing with a range of different issues.”
The review of the amendments Rubio prepared clearly shows a range of topics in play – although it’s often difficult to know from the amendment what’s exactly the issue being pushed.
Rubio’s defense- and foreign-themed amendments were intended to boost the Department of Defense budget; provide funding to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; reduce aid for United Nations entities and the Palestinian Authority because of their anti-Israel behavior; and force the president to deliver weapons to Ukraine using emergency draw-down authority in the Foreign Assistance Act.
Among domestic issues, Rubio amendments would prevent cuts to the Medicare Advantage program; allow for the elimination of the retirement earnings test in the Social Security program; and allow for the elimination of Social Security payroll taxes for individuals who have attained retirement age.
Several more amendments addressed issues such as abortion (a measure dealing with taking minors across state lines in circumvention of laws requiring the involvement of parents in abortion decisions); support for religious freedom, as well as Internet freedom; and budget matters, such as a provision reforming NASA so that the space agency disposes of its underutilized facilities to save taxpayer dollars and promote commercial space activities.
Of the 25 Rubio amendments highlighted by his office, six dealt with education policy, something that has been a theme of his. Among other things, they would change tax credits and education loan policies to help change the way college is funded.
Of all Rubio’s amendments, two passed the Senate: The one on moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel and a measure that says little more than “to improve higher education data and transparency.”
But what that measure would actually mean is a little unclear.
In a press release Friday morning, Rubio said the budget just passed “also includes . . . the ‘Student Right To Know Before You Go Act,’ which gives students and parents more information to help them make wise financial decisions when pursuing higher education.”
The act he referenced was introduced in 2013 by Rubio and Senate Democrats and would create a data-collection system, led by the federal government, to give students details about colleges they were thinking of attending. Among other things, the data collected would include education outcomes – graduation rates and the like – and post-graduation earnings and employment outcomes.
That 14-page bill didn’t go anywhere in the last Congress, and some education experts said it is controversial, pitting the desire for consumer information against concerns the bill would ramp up a major federal government collection of people’s earnings.
Terry Hartle, senior vice president and lobbyist for the American Council on Education, said Friday that creating such a database “would take a fair amount of time and cost a considerable amount of money.”
And while it would be helpful for researchers and students, it comes with considerable costs.
“This idea is very controversial in the House and very controversial at some institutions,” Hartle said. “Public schools think this would give them more accurate information about outcomes, and they are right. Private colleges and universities believe this would be a very large federal database that raises all kinds of privacy concerns, and they are right. This is a classic public policy tradeoff.”
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