Sen. McCaskill (Photo via DayLife)
– As Republicans propose a balanced budget constitutional amendment in the U.S. Senate, they may be looking toward Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill to help them move the measure forward.
McCaskill is one of two Democrats who may be willing to support a measure that would cap federal spending at a percentage of the GDP, require supermajorities to exceed that limit, and force the president to submit a balanced budget each year. She has previously proposed a CAP Act, and, responding to a question of why the federal government can’t have a balanced budget amendment, she said, “I think they should.”
“It would be great if that discipline were in place. Clearly it’s a goal we’ve got to work toward, because if we tried to do it overnight, there would be a huge financial impact,” McCaskill said. She pointed to the Recovery Act propping up state governments with similar amendments as an example of the federal government being able to help without restriction.
As a vote approaches, Republicans from the national committee and the Senate committee are pushing McCaskill on the issue, pointing out McCaskill expressed support for a balanced budget amendment during her 2006 campaign.
“As a candidate in 2006, Claire McCaskill told Missourians she would fight for a balanced budget, but instead it’s been more than 790 days since she and her Democrat colleagues passed any budget at all,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Chris Bond. “Now McCaskill is breaking her word yet again by opposing this proposal to finally balance our budget. Every Missouri family has to live by a budget, so why shouldn’t Senator McCaskill and President Obama?”
A McCaskill aide told PoliticMo Wednesday that, while her office is still evaluating the specific proposal being proposed by Republicans today, she is for it as long as it is “reasonable.”
One Republican pushing the proposal on a legislative level is Republican Sen. Roy Blunt. Blunt argued a balanced budget amendment would reduce uncertainty for the business community and positively impact private sector job growth. In making his argument, Blunt said on the floor of the Senate, “We are defending the country on borrowed money. The number one obligation of the federal government is just that.”
email: eli [at] politicmo.com | phone: 417.597.3873 | twitter: @eyokley 
All this talk about balanced budgets will limit the governments authority to spend during a recession in order to keep the country afloat. Balancing the budget is code for spending on defense. How about a balanced Defense budget and a change in both repubublican and democratic party spin regarding our spending on Defense and, instead, reveal the government’s lack of will to balance the budget through increased revenues, closing tax loopholes, taxing bank transactions and increasing the capital gains taxes to where we can make progress in our country the way we did when capital gains taxes were at 70 t0 90% levels whereby, the government could invest in education and infrastruture, and, now in clean energy. Balancing the budget now means a period of austerity for the working and middle classes and a long period of unemployment. Now we have a prominent Missouri Democrat leading the Republican charge to balance the budget based on the lie that our government’s spending is out of control spending! The country’s spending is not out of control unless you count defense spending and a failure of governement to collect the revenues from the corporate classes and the individuals whose wealth has increased while the rest of us have been unable to increase ours(wealth).
I am from Missouri and A can assure you I have talked with McKaskill’s offices on numerous occasions. The only vote counter out there that is better than McKaskill is Pelosi. McKaskill in nearly all legislation votes as it is convenient. She is seeing what her options are. If it will fail with her vote she will pretend (key word pretend) to be a conservative. But when it really matters how she votes… she is lock step and Obama Tea Bagger.