Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Marco Rubio touches on his Las Vegas roots, why American Dream increasingly elusive

Marco Rubio

Jonathan Bachman / AP

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., speaks during the National Right to Life convention, Friday, July 10, 2015, in New Orleans.

Decades ago, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's father would spend his nights tending bar in the back of Las Vegas casino banquet halls, similar to the one his son stood at the front of this evening as he addressed a crowd of hundreds at FreedomFest.

A pair of Cuban immigrants who worked long hours as a bartender and maid to support their family, Rubio held up his father and mother as examples of the American Dream at the same time he warned the crowd that dream is narrowing.

"They were both born in very poor families," the Republican presidential candidate said. "Almost every single place in the world you are told on the day you are born you will only be allowed to be what your parents were before you."

Rubio said his parents struggled and were discouraged upon arriving in America, which included a multiyear stint in Las Vegas during his childhood, but through perseverance were able to own their home and raise a family of four children, achieving their version of the American Dream.

His speech came at the FreedomFest, a conservative gathering billed as the "world's largest gathering of free minds" being hosted this week at Planet Hollywood. The final day of the conference will take place Saturday, with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump scheduled to give a speech at 11:50.

Rubio, making his second visit to Las Vegas since May, credited the free enterprise system for giving his family a chance to succeed, but warned that the American Dream today is in jeopardy.

He said an increasingly competitive global economy and new technologies threaten America's standing in the world.

"The road to the American Dream has gotten narrower because the world has changed and quite frankly our governmental policies have not changed with it," Rubio said.

He called the tax code overly burdensome and expensive, instead pushing for a simplification that will "make it easier to do business in America."

He also pointed to reforming higher education to provide options beyond expensive four-year universities and crediting students for experience earned on the job or through online courses.

"What matters is what you know, not where you learned it," he said.

Despite the dire warnings, Rubio remained upbeat and optimistic throughout the 20-minute speech, staying away from the traditional stump speech in favor of a less overtly political and more personal appeal.

"I have a debt to America I will never repay," Rubio said. "This is not just the country I grew up in, it's a nation that literally changed the history of my family."

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