On Campaign Trail, Rubio Truant in the Senate
Last week Sen. Marco Rubio warned it’s “important to be qualified, but if this election is a resume competition, then Hillary Clinton's gonna be the next president” because of her long history in office and in federal government.
For his sake, he’d better hope the GOP primary doesn’t turn into a disqualifying truancy competition, too.
A study by The Tampa Bay Times found that of the four Republican senators running for the White House, Rubio has missed the most Senate votes.
In June alone, Rubio missed 67 percent of the Senate votes, and he wasn’t there for more than half of them in July, according to The Times.
Related: The New York Times Just Made Rubio the Hero of the Struggling Middle Class
In all, the first-term lawmaker missed 29 percent of Senate votes, or 76 of 262 recorded, in the first six months of 2015. Over 50 of those came after his April 13 campaign announcement.
The numbers show how much time Rubio has had to spend off Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail as he looks to break out of a crowded GOP field that includes his friend and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
By contrast, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has missed 54 votes since declaring his candidacy in March, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was truant for 35 votes since he launched his presidential bid on June 1.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has skipped only three votes throughout 2015 and only one since declaring for president.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has missed four votes since hitting the campaign trail.
Rubio has missed nearly 11 percent of votes since he joined the Senate in January 2011, The Times analysis shows, well above the median 1.6 percent rate for the lifetimes of current senators.
A Rubio spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
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Tax Refunds Rebound
Smaller refunds in the first few weeks of the current tax season were shaping up to be a political problem for Republicans, but new data from the IRS shows that the value of refund checks has snapped back and is now running 1.3 percent higher than last year. The average refund through February 23 last year was $3,103, while the average refund through February 22 of 2019 was $3,143 – a difference of $40. The chart below from J.P. Morgan shows how refunds performed over the last 3 years.
Number of the Day: $22 Trillion
The total national debt surpassed $22 trillion on Monday. Total public debt outstanding reached $22,012,840,891,685.32, to be exact. That figure is up by more than $1.3 trillion over the past 12 months and by more than $2 trillion since President Trump took office.
Chart of the Week: The Soaring Cost of Insulin
The cost of insulin used to treat Type 1 diabetes nearly doubled between 2012 and 2016, according to an analysis released this week by the Health Care Cost Institute. Researchers found that the average point-of-sale price increased “from $7.80 a day in 2012 to $15 a day in 2016 for someone using an average amount of insulin (60 units per day).” Annual spending per person on insulin rose from $2,864 to $5,705 over the five-year period. And by 2016, insulin costs accounted for nearly a third of all heath care spending for those with Type 1 diabetes (see the chart below), which rose from $12,467 in 2012 to $18,494.
Chart of the Day: Shutdown Hits Like a Hurricane
The partial government shutdown has hit the economy like a hurricane – and not just metaphorically. Analysts at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said Tuesday that the shutdown has now cost the economy about $26 billion, close to the average cost of $27 billion per hurricane calculated by the Congressional Budget Office for storms striking the U.S. between 2000 and 2015. From an economic point of view, it’s basically “a self-imposed natural disaster,” CRFB said.
Chart of the Week: Lowering Medicare Drug Prices
The U.S. could save billions of dollars a year if Medicare were empowered to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, according to a paper published by JAMA Internal Medicine earlier this week. Researchers compared the prices of the top 50 oral drugs in Medicare Part D to the prices for the same drugs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which negotiates its own prices and uses a national formulary. They found that Medicare’s total spending was much higher than it would have been with VA pricing.
In 2016, for example, Medicare Part D spent $32.5 billion on the top 50 drugs but would have spent $18 billion if VA prices were in effect – or roughly 45 percent less. And the savings would likely be larger still, Axios’s Bob Herman said, since the study did not consider high-cost injectable drugs such as insulin.
