Chad’s Morning Brief: Clinton Campaign Promises Cost Serious Money and Republicans Rally Around Rubio

How would Clinton pay for all of her campaign promises? You can probably guess. The Chad Hasty Show airs 8:30-11am on 790AM KFYO.

Clinton Campaign Promises

According to FOX News, the price tag of Hillary Clinton's campaign promises would total at least $1 trillion dollars. You can guess how she would pay for those.

Clinton critics say she hit the $1 trillion mark over the weekend, when she unveiled a $275 billion infrastructure plan.

"To build a strong economy for our future, we must start by building strong infrastructure today," the Democratic presidential front-runner said Sunday afternoon.

The latest plan calls for $250 billion in direct investment over the next five years. An additional $25 billion would fund a national infrastructure bank. This comes on top of an array of other Clinton economic proposals – including a $350 billion college affordability plan.

Though the Democratic candidate is vowing to cut taxes for the middle class, Republicans say that’s just not possible considering the magnitude of her spending proposals.

“With Hillary Clinton’s spending binge already at a trillion dollars and counting, it’s clear she wants to treat Americans’ tax dollars like every day is Black Friday with no plan to pay the bill,” Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short said in a statement. “The real reason Hillary Clinton isn’t saying how she’ll pay for her trillion-dollar spending increase is because she knows it means raising taxes on the middle class.”

So far, Clinton has offered few specifics on how she'd fund her latest plans. Her campaign said that her infrastructure proposal would be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes but didn't detail which breaks would be targeted. The plan released by the campaign said Clinton would “fully pay for these investments through business tax reform.”

Clinton, meanwhile, has pledged to roll out hundreds of billions of dollars in middle-class tax cuts, saying she'd increase taxes on the wealthy to fund the new breaks. She's vowed not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year.

Even The Washington Post editorial board questioned whether that’s a realistic promise considering the various spending proposals and tax credits on the table.

The newspaper said in an editorial over the weekend that the vow not to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 while still funding promised benefits is “implausible.”

“There is simply no way that the federal government can meet its current fiscal commitments, plus the increased demands of an aging population, and provide the new forms of middle-class relief and business tax relief Ms. Clinton promises, while tapping only the top 3 percent of earners,” the Post editorial board wrote.

Other proposed Clinton policies include universal pre-K, combating substance abuse and expanding family leave, projected to add hundreds of billions of dollars more to the pricetag of her plans. The RNC estimates that before the infrastructure proposal was announced, her campaign already had proposed at least $745 billion in new commitments over 10 years.

I am shocked! Shocked that Hillary Clinton would campaign on cutting taxes when all her proposed ideas... the ones we know of, would require a tax increase. I know you are probably just as shocked.

GOP Rallies to Rubio

As Ted Cruz grows stronger in the polls, some Republican lawmakers have decided to rally in support for Marco Rubio according to POLITICO.

Ted Cruz has built his Senate career and presidential campaign on his willingness to stick it to the Republican establishment. And now that he’s gaining momentum in the primary, his many GOP nemeses in Congress are returning the favor by quietly coalescing behind Marco Rubio.

Senior Republican senators who’ve clashed with Cruz for years have had nothing but nice things to say about Rubio even as he’s dissed — and largely ditched — his day job in the Capitol. Just this month, Rubio has racked up endorsements from nine members of Congress, compared with two for early GOP front-runner Jeb Bush. More House endorsements for Rubio are set to roll out in December, according to campaign sources, and several GOP senators said privately they expect their colleagues to get behind Rubio once the GOP field thins.

The movement toward Rubio appears to be as much about anxiety over the possibility of Cruz going up against Hillary Clinton as it is affection for the Florida senator. The idea of Cruz as the nominee is enough to send shudders down the spines of most Senate Republicans.

Mainstream elected Republicans now see Cruz as a bigger threat than Donald Trump or Ben Carson to clinch the nomination — but equally damaging to their party’s chances of winning the White House and keeping the Senate next fall. Rubio would be a much stronger general election standard bearer, they believe.

“Marco is a true next-generation conservative,” said Steve Daines (R-Mont.), one of three senators who endorsed Rubio in November. “Every time there’s a debate, his stock goes up.”

Cruz winning the nomination "could happen with the angry situation we have out there” among the GOP electorate, said one Republican senator who hasn't endorsed in the race but does not want Cruz.

Rubio's GOP colleagues are looking to exploit what they see as Rubio's advantage on national security in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks. They're heaping praise on Rubio's hawkish foreign policy views and panning Cruz’s attempt to find middle ground on national security. Asked about Rubio’s attacks on Cruz’s votes for the USA Freedom Act, which scaled back federal surveillance authorities, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas replied: “It’s always fair to question votes and hold people accountable.”

As for Cruz’s attempt to stake out a centrist position on national security between the party’s hawkish and libertarian poles, Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said: “I don’t think you can split that baby."

“Candidates running for national office who are articulating strong, firm, decisive positions that are well-thought-out are going to have an advantage,” said No. 3 Senate Republican John Thune of South Dakota. Rubio, he added, is “well positioned to make the arguments.”

Cornyn, Thune and Coats have not endorsed in the presidential primary, and lawmakers interviewed for this story said many senior Republicans do not want to embarrass long-shot presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham by endorsing Rubio while the South Carolina senator is in the race. They’re also aware that endorsements from top GOP lawmakers at this point in the primary wouldn’t help Rubio’s cause with the Republican base.

Cruz scoffed at the notion that Rubio is more electable, telling POLITICO that that’s precisely the logic that paved the way for Democrats to win five of the past six popular votes for the White House.

“Democrats also told Republicans Bob Dole was more electable, Democrats also told the press John McCain was more electable, Democrats also told the press Mitt Romney was more electable,” Cruz said. “Then the Democrats were quite happy to go to their inauguration balls."

Equating Ted Cruz to Donald Trump is laughable. Ted Cruz has strengthened the conservative and Republican brand, not harmed it. Voters want a fighter and reward those fighters in the end. Republican won the Senate AFTER the government shutdown. Then after winning the Senate the Republicans have done nothing.

I think that in their own ways, both Cruz and Rubio have done more for Republicans and conservatives than many Senators have done.