On March 3, 2010, Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning delayed a vote on extending unemployment benefits because Democrats once again ignored their own PAYGO legislation and decreed the extension emergency spending.
Said Senator Claire McCaskill on the delay, printed in the Post Dispatch blog Political Fix.
"The idea that someone would play politics with unemployment benefits while our country is facing ten percent unemployment is offensive,” McCaskill said. “This emergency extension was about keeping food on the table for thousands of unemployed families, yet Republicans were more concerned with holding things up in the Senate. When Americans see this sort of thing happening in Congress, they have every right to be frustrated. Frankly, I’m frustrated too.”
A short three months later, McCaskill has completely changed her tune, and now gets to roll in the praise of being a budget hawking Senator.
McCaskill said she supports a number of benefits in an extenders bill before the Senate but, like Republicans, she worries about the indefinite extension of benefits that aren't paid for by cuts elsewhere in the budget.
"At this point, I am still weighing the pros and cons of both provisions," the budget-hawking senator said Wednesday in a conference call with Missouri reporters.
McCaskill said she supports some of the small-business and research-and-development tax credits in the bill, but that she does not like other parts, specifically a number of portions not being paid for.
So let me get this straight. In March, she gets to send press releases to the Post Dispatch talking about her frustration and the offensive Jim Bunning who had the brashness to suggest they figure out a way to cut spending before tacking on tens of billions to the deficit.
In June, she does the same thing Bunning does, actually going so far as to vote against the very unpaid benefits she was saying were necessary three months ago, and now she's a budget hawk?
The Post Dispatch is silent, but they do carry an AP story that covers the vote, although it doesn't mention McCaskill.
Show Me Progress doesn't buy her spin. They whine that she betrayed them. She probably did. After all, doesn't she know that money is just something that can be printed? In this case, McCaskill did the right thing, but it doesn't cover up the fact that when she needed to get a little media action, she attacked Jim Bunning for a vote she would later make.
And from the Missouri press? Crickets.
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