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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, when I talk to families in the State of Florida and around the Nation, I often hear how they are struggling to make ends meet. The cost of healthcare is up. Owning a home has become nearly unattainable.

The former administration pushed the American dream further and further out of reach for so many families all across our great Nation.

I grew up in public housing, and my family didn't have much. I look across the country and see families just like mine growing up, doing everything they can to make ends meet. But I knew back then that I had the opportunity to do anything because the American dream was alive. As Governor and Senator, my goal has been to keep the American dream alive so every family can have the same opportunities I did.

That dream and those opportunities don't exist under socialism. When crazy radicals in New York City and across this country villainize capitalism and push socialism, they forget they have benefited from the very system they criticize.

Socialism has never worked. It is an old, barbaric, discredited idea that failed every time it has been tried. Look at Cuba and Venezuela and the many families that fled those brutal regimes to live in my State of Florida. It kills those opportunities.

We need to drive down costs. The answer isn't more government; it is less. We don't need more government decisions. We need fewer government decisions. We need to do what we did in Florida--cut taxes, reduce government regulations, and grow jobs.

The United States was built on individual freedoms and opportunities and the right of every individual to pursue the American dream, despite coming from nothing, just like I had the opportunity to do. That is what this great country stands for.

This resolution is a stark reminder for the far left: Socialism is a failure, and Americans will always reject it.

Con. Res. 58, which was received from the House; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I actually was born in the great State of Illinois and lived in public housing there. I grew up in a family that could have benefited from things like Medicaid and the Food Stamp Program. We didn't have those. Those are great programs, and that is not socialism. Socialism is when we take from one group and we just give to another with no real basis for it.

We want safety nets, but socialism is a failed ideology. Nothing in this resolution suggests that Medicare is socialism. Nothing says Social Security is socialism, because it is not. But it is a failed ideology and the antithesis of the American dream.

We have all been blessed. We grew up in a country that believes in capitalism. I invite any of my colleagues that believe socialism is good to visit Cuba or Venezuela. I don't see many people flocking there. I see them flocking out of there to my great State and other States.

If you want to come and talk about socialism, come to my State, especially in the city of Miami, where so many people had to flee because they had no country.

Socialism is a proven path to tyranny, starvation, as my colleague brought up--so many things in the resolution--death. I am always going to fight for capitalism.

We weren't able to get this passed. I don't think it suggests that great programs like Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, Medicaid-- these things are not socialism. But when you are trying to destroy the dream of this country that you can start from nothing and be anything, we should all be in favor of supporting capitalism over socialism.

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