Marco Rubio Sounds Off on Unemployment Rate

Former House Speaker Marco Rubio, the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination in the U.S. Senate race on Tuesday, weighed in on the announcement Friday that Floridas unemployment rate increased to 11.5 percent in July -- and took aim at President Barack Obama and Gov. Charlie Crist.

"Todays unemployment report is yet another reminder that the policies coming out of Washington have created crippling uncertainty in our economy, hurt job growth, and failed over a million Floridians who continue struggling to find work and many more who have given up altogether, said Rubio. Over 18 months after President Obama and Charlie Crist promised that the $862 billion stimulus would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, it's clear all that has been stimulated is our debt. Instead of learning from this mistake and ending it before billions more go to waste, Washington continues borrowing and spending with reckless abandon that has us on a road toward a Greece-like day of reckoning.

By tomorrow, I will have campaigned in Florida's four corners this week -- Pensacola, Jacksonville, Miami and Naples, added Rubio. Everywhere I go, I keep hearing from Florida's job creators that Washington's policies are causing them to hold back. What they need and deserve are pro-growth economic policies that will lead to job creation.

"Instead of cap-and-trade energy taxes, we need a pro-jobs tax policy, said Rubio. Instead of massive stimulus bills, we need concrete measures that will eliminate wasteful spending and instill confidence in Americas fiscal future. Instead of Obamacare, we need commonsense health-care reform measures that will empower Floridians to get health insurance at lower costs.

"The bottom line is that we need leadership in Washington we can trust to work for pro-growth economic policies that will put Florida and America back to work, concluded Rubio.