Claire McCaskill: Dumbest non-Republican of the Day

"It is WAAAYYY too early to be thinking about a second stimulus. We have to work on the banks and mortgages and other things first"

---Claire McCaskill on Morning Joe, repeating the line several times.

That is the dumbest thing a non-Republican has said in weeks.

It is like a doctor saying, "Hey, we just took out your cancerous lung last week. It's waaaayy to early to be thinking about chemotherapy. Let's see whether the cancer has spread first."

(Or even, "Why would I want a flu vaccine? I don't have the flu.")

If there were to be a second stimulus bill there's no obvious virtue to delay beyond the home-spun perception that delay is prudent. And the mortgage situation and banking situation are not isolated issues. The worse the economy is the worse, and more expensive banking and mortgage problems will be. Economic growth and employment or lack thereof affect declining home prices and the toxicity of assets. High unemployment will do great further damage to the real-estate market and the banks and swamp the effects of mortgage relief and bank give-away programs.

Economic policy is predictive in nature because measures take so long to percolate through the system that you can not wait to see whether a measure works because by the time the results are in it is too late to correct.

For instance, Fed interest rate moves are estimated to take about nine months to manifest themselves. Yet the Fed does not wait a year between moves to see whether the last one worked. They continually incorporate every development into a (hopefully) predictive model.

We do not know how bad unemployment will or will not get. Nobody does. But we have excellent reason to think that unemployment next month will break the levels predicted for LATE 2009 so the estimates upon which the stimulus plan was based are already looking off-base which under-cuts the reliability of our calculations of likely effect of the stimulus bill. And that's about as much as we get to know before making the choice what is needed. We don't get to see if unemployment reaches 12% first then ask for a do-over.

That's why economic policy is tricky and often wrong. Economists didn't agree that a recession had started in December 2007 until mid-2008. Economic statistics are inherently backward looking but economic actions must be anticipatory.

To the best of our limited ability to predict, all the leading indicators suggest more help is needed to forestall dire events down the road.

If she wants to say no additional stimulus measure will be needed then say that. Make that prediction upon which your policy judgment is based.

But if you are so bloody worried about wasteful spending then please understand that in the eventuality that a second round will be needed every day of delay between now and then adds billions of dollars to what will be required.

The stupidest, most wasteful and irresponsible thing to do with the taxpayer's dollar today is to NOT spend it.

Claire is a LOT of things, but DUMB is not one of them.

It's not that there wont be another stimulus, but we can't start talking about it now or it will make the first one look like a failure. ;)

Someone on msnbc mentioned this last night (Rachel or David in for Keith).

.... why she not in the admin is beyond me. The only reason I can think of is that it's good to keep some of your closest allies in places where they can help push your agenda forward. ;)

Where they can, as Mr. Steele might say, "have your back."

Whether its in Congress, or on your campaign plane. :)

Otherwise, I'm sure she'd be in the administration. She's definitely one of Pres. Obama's right-hand people. I love her!

Ah well, she's certainly handling things in the Senate. I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

...love how she raked 'em over the coals last week about whining over earmarks that THEY'D put in. Great stuff!

I think the O/P is thinking to broadly/long term - politics has short and long term goals.

behind the scenes. A "it will be ready to go if we need it" type of deal.

I would say it's probably premature to start discussing it, as the first one has barely had time to make an impact at this point. I can't remember where this came from, but it would have been a reputable source as I usually don't pay a lot of attention to sources that can't be trusted.

:shrug:

We don't need talk of a second stimulus right now, we need to focus on the one that's in place, and make sure people know the GOP is doing all it can to stop anything that might benefit America.

(America = anyone not wealthy.)

She knows what she is doing.

House Dems eyeing another stimulus bill


edit to add link


http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/house-dems-eyeing-another-stimulus-bill-2009-03-10.html

By Jared Allen
Posted: 03/10/09 12:55 PM

House Democrats are looking at yet another economic stimulus bill beyond the $787 billion one just enacted as investors and consumers continue to show little faith in the economy.

At a special meeting of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on Tuesday morning, Democrats heard again from their trusted band of economists and came away reinforced that Congress would need to spend billions of additional taxpayer dollars in the coming months to help pull the economy out its severe recession.

One proposal being considered is an additional economic stimulus bill. Just last month, President Obama signed a $787 billion dollar stimulus measure that Democrats contended was needed to save or create 3.5 million jobs and that Republicans derided as nothing more than debt spending on wasteful federal projects.

“We are going to need more taxpayer money,” Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com and a key economic advisor to Congressional Democrats, said after the meeting. “I think another stimulus package is a reasonable assumption because of the way things are going.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), standing with members of her leadership team by Zandi’s side, said she agreed that another stimulus bill is being considered as an option......

...to talk about this yet ~ which is why Claire said what she did.

her popularity here seems to stem from her endorsement of Obama during the primaries. I don't see anything else of note about the woman.

:eyes:

Being a good a$$ kisser doesn't make her the sharpest senator in the chamber.

:D

fast becoming one of our better Democratic Senators after beating an incumbent Repub Senator.

posts like this make DU look silly.

anything other than an average senator.

:shrug:

What she is doing is what President Obama wants her to in the short term. Insulting her ad hominem is just silly IMO.

from a mostly red state. She's waaaaay smarter than you give her credit for.

Everytime I hear her speak I hear GOP terminology in full display. She opposes the equal rights my family as promised under the US Constitution, and as such she has no support coming from me on anything.

I just see a sycophant who has attached herself to Obama's hip since her endorsement. Don't dislike her, but she's a run of the mill senator.......so far.

:eyes:

Wasn't she one of his chosen surrogates?

imo she's still one of his best surrogates.

In your universe, can there be only one successful Democratic woman?

Hillary always speaks her mind, if she disagrees with something she'll make herself heard. She's just disciplined enough not to say it in public now that she's temporarily out of politics.

:7

maybe I was being a little harsh. So maybe she truly is his buddy.

:D

Joe Loserman is my Senator and I would trade for Claire in a heartbeat! :)

He's an extreme case.

:D

Really?

I wonder if her net worth rose or fell last year.

I think her statement re stimulus is cya on public opinion re earmarks-she wants to be seen as fiscally responsible. Covering all bases.

They analyze the primary tumor and the locations of possible mets to decide whether chemotherapy is warranted and, if so, which course is appropriate.

A deliberative approach is often appropriate, in medicine and in politics.

voting record because she has had a few strong words about Republicans. Another example of idol worshipping on DU.

...for the president ~ to dismiss her is to dismiss him.

speaks for Obama for every statement he/she makes.

She has already stated she did not like Obama's budget. Does she speak for Obama saying that? Does she speak for Obama voting for changes in the Omnibus Bill when the WH has made clear they wanted it passed ASAP, which means that the House version should be adopted as it?

She is her own woman, and, as for every other person, has her positive and negative sides. Refusing to recognize that is engaging in idol worshiping. Disagreeing with the OP not on the merit of the argument, but because what she said MAY BE Obama's position is idol worshiping as well.

She is a bit too centrist for my taste (and, for most of DU it seems), but she did stand out to me when she railed against executive pay/bonueses, and when she called out the Republicans for their earmark hypocrisy. Still, I never see threads that could qualify as idol worship. And, I do like that she was one of the surrogates who was "out there" during the general election, when other Democratic surrogates were no where to be found. And that has nothing to do with the person she chose to endorse in the primaries. And I don't think you could call her an ass kisser when she has deviated from Obama a couple times. Still, for the quote in the OP, I do think she's probably speaking for the White House. The choice to hold off on a second stimulus seems more of a short term political thing, so Republicans can't declare the current stimulus a "failure" yet. I'm sure it's on their minds. When the first stimulus was being formed, John Harwood said to Obama "Why not make it a trillion?" and Obama said "Hey, we haven't ruled that out yet", so I think Obama does know that a second stimulus will be needed.

here.

the only reason why you get continuous vaccine is because you're trying to prevent a re-occurrence of this desease, if they feel the only way the economy can rebound is to give it another stimulus? why should that be a problem ?

We need to be patient with this administration and allow them time to do what is right, sometimess I do feel most of this fake outrage on this site is coming from the wolves amongst us.

The damge done by the Bush administration did not happened overnight, it took eight fuckin years to unfold, and here you are having a go at McCaskill for stating the obvious.

Take a chill pill people and let these folks finally do the jobs they where sent there to do.


:mad:

A well written and thoughtful post in my opinion.

You nailed it!