Claire McCaskill's Profile In Cowardice

She may be (tangentially) better than Blunt or Talent but McCaskill is no Benton

Thomas Hart Benton was Missouri's first senator, a Democrat who renounced slavery when his party and the powers in his own state backed it. The Senate's first member to win 5 terms, this pretty much ended his political career (although he won one term as a congressman afterwards). Most non-Missourians who have ever heard of him know him as one of the 8 senators profiled in JFK's Profiles In Courage. The current Democratic senator from Missouri will never be a Profile in Courage, and will in all likelihood be a one-term senator. From the day she was elected she's supported an anti-family, conservative agenda. How bad? How abysmal 57.14 crucial vote ProgressivePunch score this year is identical with Ben Nelson's, Mark Pryor's and Joe Manchin's, making up a quartet of conservatives the GOP knows they can most easily win over to their side on the most important issues of the day.

So this weekend, no one who read Robert Reich's post, The Republican Plan With Lipstick should have been surprised to learn that the co-author of that Republican plan was none other than Missouri ConservaDem, Claire McCaskill. Courageous? Sure... in the same way that Paul Ryan's showed "courage" to try to balance the budget on the backs of the middle and working class while further enriching the richest in our already out-of-sync society. In fact, the Republican proposal that McCaskill and Bob Corker are working on is very much in tune with Ryan's thoroughly detested budget-- paying down the deficit at the expense of working families while protecting the prerogatives of the multimillionaires, billionaires and corporations that just happen to fund the careers of our sleazy political class.

According to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the McCaskill/Corker plan would require $800 billion of cuts in 2022 alone. That’s the equivalent of eliminating Medicare entirely, or the entire Department of Defense.

Obviously the Defense Department wouldn’t disappear, so what would go? Giant cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, and much of everything else Americans depend on.

It’s the Republican plan with lipstick. It would have the same exact result. But by disguising it with caps and procedures, Republicans can avoid saying what they’re intending to do.

The McCaskill/Corker spending cap would also make it impossible for government to boost the economy in recessions. Which would mean even higher unemployment, lasting longer.

Other Senate Dems are showing interest in the lipsticked pig, including West Virginia’s Joe Manchin. Not surpringly, Joe Lieberman is on board.

But don’t be fooled, and don’t let anyone else be. McCaskill/Corker is the same Republican pig.

That's because McCaskill, despite the blue t-shirt she wears for whatever vestigial reason is herself nothing but a Republican pig.