BOCA RATON — Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio, who spoke to a chamber of commerce group here this morning, said fixing Social Security needs to be part of any long-term deficit-reduction plan.

Rubio favors no changes in the system for people who are now 55 or older, but says “proposals that have to be talked about” include eventually raising the retirement age and changing the formula for determining yearly benefit increases. He accused Gov. Charlie Crist and both leading Democratic Senate candidates of refusing to confront the issue and predicted they’ll try to misrepresent his stance.

“I guarantee you right now that in this campaign, one or both of my opponents will run a commercial that says Marco Rubio wants to take away your Social Security,” Rubio told the group of about 25 Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce trustees.

Asked afterward about Attorney General and GOP governor candidate Bill McCollum’s proposal to bring an Arizona-style immigration law to Florida, Rubio said: “The best way to deal with that issue is for the federal government to secure the border….If the federal government had done it job, there would never have been an Arizona law.”

Asked about no-party candidate Crist’s refusal to say which party he would caucus with in the Senate, Rubio said:

“This issue of who you’re going to caucus with is important. This is not just about what club you’re going to belong to. The majority leader of the United States Senate is a very important position, and who he’s going to vote for for majority leader is an important decision that Floridians deserve to know. And this idea that somehow I’m going to get elected and tell you later what I’m going to do is offensive. I think it should be to voters, that he refuses to say and be held accountable….Voters deserve to know before the election who he intends to support.”

Rubio, a Cuban American, was asked about the recent controversy over Democratic Senate hopeful Jeff Greene’s 2007 visit to Cuba. Greene first said he went on a humanitarian mission to visit Cuba’s Jewish community, then said he was there because his yacht needed repairs and he visited some synagogues during the unplanned layover. Greene rival Kendrick Meek accused Greene of breaking the U.S. embargo against Cuba, which Greene vehemently denied.

“I think it’s weird. Too weird for me,” Rubio said of the controversy.

Tags: Cuba

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at 11:23 am and is filed under 2010 campaigns, Bill McCollum, Charlie Crist, George Bennett, Jeff Greene, Kendrick Meek, Marco Rubio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.