Joe Smith: House Leaders Respond to Senator McCaskill’s Criticisms, Urge Her to Stop Wasteful Spending

On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill publicly criticized Republican leaders in Missouri. She said we shouldn’t complain about the federal bailout dollars sent to our state because those dollars were meant to help us and create jobs. I’m afraid that Senator McCaskill didn’t do her research before making this unfounded assertion. Since the bailout dollars have been received, Missouri has lost an additional 62,600 jobs and the unemployment rate sits at 9.6%. The bailout didn’t work.

Last year, when Republicans in House of Representatives heard that a federal bailout package was headed to our state, we wanted to send it back. We don’t agree with the bailout mentality and we don’t believe that spending our way out of the recession is the answer.

When we asked to send the money back, we learned that the money, which are Missouri tax dollars, would be sent to other states. This was unacceptable to us – we shouldn’t be bailout out the states around us with our own tax dollars. Senator McCaskill criticized us and called us, “short-sighted” for wanting to send back the bailout. We were ridiculed by Congress. Then, we decided to take the bailout money and send it back to the people of Missouri in the form of a tax rebate. Well, Senator McCaskill didn’t like that either. In fact, Washington DC sent us a very clear message that sending the money back in a tax rebate would be illegal and not what the bailout was intended for. This left us with one of two choices: sending the money back and allowing Missouri tax dollars to flow to other states, or using the bailout for the state of Missouri and do what the federal government told us to do. As you can see, we didn’t have much freedom with our own tax dollars.

This is not a partisan issue. This is a very serious issue concerning the future of the prosperity of our country. I am a firm believer that Senator McCaskill, who voted to raise the debt ceiling by 1.9 trillion dollars, needs to listen to what the citizens of Missouri are saying and stop trying to win a political battle. We don’t want tax dollars sent to our state in the form of a bailout – we want Congress to balance the national budget and use our tax dollars wisely.

Each year for nearly a decade, House Republicans have worked in a responsible fashion to balance our state budget and use wise fiscal planning. We don’t spend money we don’t have – it’s that simple. We are calling on Senator McCaskill and her DC cohorts to follow our lead. Please spend less time criticizing us, and more time focusing on what our citizens want.