Marco Rubio Speaks on Taxes, Spending and Debt Limit Talks

Florida Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio took to the floor of the Senate on Thursday to weigh in on the economy and the current standoff over raising the federal debt ceiling. Rubio spoke out against higher taxes and in favor of cutting federal spending to reduce the national debt.

Rubio also weighed in on raising the debt ceiling, which remains the issue of the moment in the Beltway with President Barack Obama, Senate Democrats and House Republicans still facing a logjam.

The last point I would make is, the word compromise is a very popular word around here. And there's nothing wrong with compromise, so long as the compromise also happens to be a solution, because if your compromise doesn't solve the problem, you've just created a new problem, said Rubio. Nothing wrong with compromise. Maybe your ideas of tax reform are different from my ideas of tax reform, but ultimately we have to solve the broken tax code. So compromise is not a dirty word unless the compromise makes it worse, not better. Too often ...in politics, compromise leads to things that make things worse, not better. And if you raise taxes in this economy with 9 percent unemployment, you're going to make things worse, not better.

So I hope that we will rally in a bipartisan fashion around the concept of tax reform, of creating a tax code in America that encourages people to create jobs here once again, said Rubio in closing. Because if we can solve the jobs issue, if we can begin to solve the unemployment issue, allother issues that we face as a nation become easier to deal with, and with that, I thank you for your attention.