Marco Rubio kicks off media blitz with talk of raising the retirement age for Social Security

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio this week kicked off a national media blitz to highlight what he feels is a crisis in the growing national debt and offered a series of politically challenging solutions, including raising the retirement age for Social Security.

Tapping into his star power, the newly elected freshman Republican opined in the Wall Street Journal and appeared on Fox News and ABC's Nightline.

Rubio said he will vote against raising the amount the federal government can borrow — the so-called debt ceiling — unless there is a series of steps put in motion, including "fundamental tax reform," a balanced budget amendment and reforms to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

"Leaders of both parties have grown our government for decades by spending money we didn't have," Rubio wrote in the Journal. "To pay for it, they borrowed $4 billion a day, leaving us with today's $14 trillion debt."

Rubio acknowledged his solutions are not new, saying politicians lacked the will to tackle the issue. Indeed many of the reforms are controversial, particularly Social Security. Rubio raised that possibility on the campaign trail last year and then-Gov. Charlie Crist tried to make it an issue but did not get traction.

In an interview with Florida reporters Wednesday, Rubio said lawmakers should consider raising the retirement age and adjusting other aspects of the program — but not for people currently near retirement.

"I'm only talking to people that are decades away from retirement," Rubio said. "I want there to be a Social Security and a Medicare when I retire. But the math tells me it won't exist if we don't begin to do something about it now."

Rubio said he would attempt to rally grass roots support, tapping the same voters that helped him soar into office.

"We have to start creating pressure on people in this process to do something about it now and see through the smoke, the rhetoric, the noise of politics," he said.

Eric Jotkoff, a spokesman for the Florida Democratic Party, said Rubio was pursuing an "extreme tea party agenda" that is out of step with Florida.