EDITORIAL: 4 good ideas from Rubio’s campaign — and 2 that need work

Marco Rubio lived in the Las Vegas Valley from age 8 to age 14, the son of immigrants employed by the hotel industry. Today, he's an attorney, a Florida senator and a Republican candidate for president of the United States.

The driving force behind the 44-year-old's compelling story is his family's pursuit of better opportunities and a better life. The policies he champions in his campaign are intended to do the same for all Americans.

Sen. Rubio met with the Review-Journal's editorial board Friday to discuss his vision for the country. To help Nevada voters decide whether they might support his candidacy, we've chosen to highlight four of Sen. Rubio's positions we support and two positions we don't support.

Four issues we agree on:

— Federal land: More than 80 percent of the land within Nevada's borders is controlled by Washington, the highest share in the country. The lack of privately owned land in Nevada and across the West greatly limits economic opportunity, especially in rural areas. "There's no need for Washington to hold that much land, especially when so much of it isn't being actively managed," Sen. Rubio said. He supports transferring some federal land to private ownership. Bravo, Sen. Rubio.

— Immigration: Republican presidential candidates are so focused on illegal immigration that the country's broken system of legal immigration doesn't get the attention it deserves. Sen. Rubio points out that "we are in a global competition for talent" and should be welcoming entrepreneurs and professionals who can help America's economy grow. He wants a merit-based system of legal immigration to replace today's family-based system. Once the government proves it has illegal immigration under control through improved border security and e-Verify, he supports allowing otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants to remain in the country legally if they learn English and pass a background check, among other provisions. It's a reasonable approach.

— Entitlement reform: The fast-approaching insolvency of Medicare and Social Security "is the most predictable crisis in American history," Sen. Rubio says. "If we deal with them now, we don't have to change them for current beneficiaries." Refusing to act — the status quo in Washington on all difficult issues — will make the choices harder down the road. Under Sen. Rubio's plan, future generations would have slightly higher retirement ages and less-generous inflationary adjustments.

— Economic policy: Sen. Rubio understands that everything an administration does influences the economy. Tax reform and simplification (for both corporations and individuals) are just one part of his pro-growth agenda. Sen. Rubio would strictly limit federal regulations, which burden businesses by hurting job creation and wage growth. He wants a U.S. energy policy that allows America to lead the world in oil and gas production. He wants a health care policy that replaces Obamacare with a system that gives Americans the ability to buy health insurance tailored to their needs, not what government says they need. Sen. Rubio wants Washington to stop trying to fix everything with new laws, and instead get out of the way of the private sector and start encouraging the investment that creates U.S. jobs. In other words, a federal government of enumerated, limited powers, not unlimited power.

Two issues we don't agree on:

— Military spending: Sen. Rubio supports scaling back the federal government and shrinking its bureaucratic workforce, but he wants to increase defense spending. The United States spends more money on defense than any country in the world — more than twice what second-place China spends. Yes, America's superpower status depends on a strong military, but that status won't be in jeopardy if Washington spends less on national defense. We don't believe it's possible to balance the federal budget and shrink the national debt — two of Sen. Rubio's priorities — without reducing defense spending.

— Yucca Mountain: Sen. Rubio supports shipping the country's high-level nuclear waste to Southern Nevada's Yucca Mountain. "I'm open to the science that says there's a better place," he said. "If someone has a better idea, we'll listen to it. But right now, the place that's been identified and that has been invested in is Yucca Mountain." Politics, not science, singled out Yucca Mountain as the country's nuclear dumping ground, and politics will determine whether the nuclear waste ever makes it here — or whether another location takes the place of the shuttered repository site northwest of Las Vegas. Instead, how about the consent-based approach to site selection now favored by the Obama administration? And how about a generous financial offer to Nevada as part of that approach?