Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) has just wrapped up a series of town hall forums throughout the state. She answered questions and addressed concerns from her constituents … many of them focused on the economy.
Some say President Obama’s latest economic strategy is too little too late. McCaskill says his ideas are good, and if politicking was taken out of the equation, they would be embraced by both sides of the aisle in the U.S. Senate. She says one of those items is giving more decision making power and support to small businesses — an item she says is pulled right from the Republican’s notebook.
And she says there seems to be the perception that the stimulus funding “flew out the window and did nothing.”
McCaskill says the stimulus funding went to tax breaks, unemployment benefits, individual states for discretionary spending and infrastructure projects such as road and bridge construction, which has created jobs. She pointed out that money was also used by the state legislature to balance the budget, quoting a $4 billion cut to programs would have been the result without it.
Senator McCaskill says the federal stimulus package did not turn the U.S. economy around completely, but it did stave off a meltdown. And she admits the problem was worse than they originally thought.
Senator McCaskill just finished a series of town hall forums in Missouri, making stops in Trenton, Concordia, Maryville, Dexter, Fredericktown, Mt. Vernon, Rolla and Fulton.