After Voting for Obamacare, Stimulus, and Bailouts, Claire McCaskill is Selling Herself as "Financially Responsible"

In the four years that Claire Mama Caskill has sat in the US Senate, she has voted for nearly every major spending plan that has come through the Senate and endorsed by Barack Obama. She has been a part of the fastest growing deficit era in this country, 2009-2011. She has done little to stop out of control spending with the exception of putting on a mask reading "financially responsible."

Senator McCaskill's record is one that is easy to define, but it's a record Claire Mama Caskill herself is running from.

In a letter to supporters, Mama Caskill writes:

Americans have made it clear that they want the federal government to reduce spending. I agree and have made fiscal responsibility a centerpiece of my Senate service since the day I arrived. It is time to get our fiscal house in order.

I have never requested an earmark and I worked tirelessly to ban earmarks from Congress. As Chair of the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, I have been working to root out waste and fraud in government contracting, especially at the Defense Department. I sponsored Pay-As-You-Go legislation that requires any new tax cuts or spending to be deficit neutral. With Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, I fought to impose binding caps on discretionary spending that came within one vote of passing the Senate. I have also introduced a bill requiring the federal government to balance its budget – if states are required to balance their budgets, then so should the federal government…

…While I understand a vote against raising the debt limit sends a message, I think it would be a mistake for the greatest country on earth to actually make a decision to not pay its bills. However, this doesn’t mean the federal government has a blank check continue spending. I remain committed to reducing our deficit and working toward long-term comprehensive solutions to our fiscal problems.

We have a difficult road ahead, and we need real, bipartisan solutions to our nation’s complex fiscal problems. I will continue to work across the aisle to reduce spending even when my party leaders have opposed me. I hope politicians in both parties will do the same for our nation’s credibility and our economic recovery. Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance to you on this or any other issue.

Sincerely,

Claire McCaskill United States Senator