including Rubio, as did the non-profit group Florida TaxWatch. Many of those listed items were for health and social programs that Rubio has described as "the kind of thing that legislators would get attacked on if we didn't fund them". A 2010 report by the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald said that some of Rubio's spending requests dovetailed with his personal interests. For example, Rubio requested a $20million appropriation for Jackson Memorial Hospital to subsidize care for the poor and uninsured, and Rubio later did work for that hospital as a consultant. A spokesman for Rubio has said that the items in question helped the whole county, that Rubio did not lobby to get them approved, that the hospital money was necessary and non-controversial, and that Rubio is "a limited-government conservative... not a no-government conservative". House speaker On September 13, 2005, at age 34, Rubio became speaker after State Representatives Dennis Baxley, Jeff Kottkamp, and Dennis A. Ross dropped out. He was sworn in a year later, in November 2006. He became the first Cuban American to be speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, and would remain speaker until November 2008. When he was chosen as future speaker in 2005, Rubio delivered a speech to the House in which he asked members to look in their desks, where they each found a hardcover book titled 100 Innovative Ideas For Florida's Future; but the book was blank because it had not yet been written, and Rubio told his colleagues that they would fill in the pages together with the help of ordinary Floridians. In 2006, after traveling around the state and talking with citizens, and compiling their ideas, Rubio published the book. The National Journal called this book "the centerpiece of Rubio's early speakership". About 24 of the "ideas" became law, while another 10 were partially enacted. Among the items from his 2006 book that became law were multiple-year car registrations, a requirement that high schools provide more vocational courses, and an expanded voucher-like school-choice program. Rubio's defenders, and some critics, point out that nationwide economic difficulties overlapped with much of Rubio's speakership, and so funding new legislative proposals became difficult. As Rubio took office as Speaker, Jeb Bush was completing his term as governor, and Bush left office in January 2007. Rubio hired 18 Bush aides, leading capitol insiders to say the speaker's suite was "the governor's office