Backpedaling in Real-Time

Claire McCaskill, part of the bipartisan group of Senators gutting the stimulus, sent out the following update on Twitter: "Proud we cut over 100 billion out of recov bill.Many Ds don't like it, but needed to be done.The silly stuff Rs keep talking about is OUT." Elsewhere, she told reporters that the cuts eliminated the "junk" in the bill. Her communications director Adrianne Marsh said "So glad that Claire was part of this moderate team Nelson is calling "the jobs squad". Very cool. Hopefully the others will see this is best". Here McCaskill is taking pride in her role in the cuts and dismissing the shortchanged programs.

The "silly stuff" cut included $40 billion for state government, $98 million for school nutrition, $1 billion for Head Start, and $2 billion for increased broadband access. As D-Day points out, since states are constitutionally required to balance their budgets, state budget cuts undermine the effects of the federal stimulus. Many of the other affected programs both put people to work and are important long-term investments. Take Head Start: funding the program means hiring more teachers and other staff, and the parents of participating children have increased opportunity to find work themselves (not to mention the benefit of providing education to low-income kids). Instead, the centrists have ensured that we will employ 600,000 to 900,000 fewer Americans than had their changes not been implemented.

Responding to critics from the left, McCaskill backpedaled, arguing that "Compromise had to happen or we would NOT have 60 votes. Period." To Krugman, she responded "Just saw Krugman's comments on reduction in recov act. Question for him. Would no stimulus act be better than one thats 800 B instead of 900." This is a different argument. First, she defended the cuts on their merits. Later, she justified the cuts as a necessary step to getting the bill passed. Interestingly, she shifted from first-person in the first tweet to passive voice in the later ones, with the effect of obscuring her involvement in the "compromise."

I'm glad McCaskill is addressing criticism from the left, and I'm even sympathetic to her political argument: Deficit spending requires 60 votes to pass in the Senate, and the bill has to pass. The problem is her shifting rationalizations for the cuts -- her argument that all of the programs she cut weren't worthwhile and wouldn't help to get us out of this mess is troubling. Politicians embracing Twitter is great, but in this case it just means we get to see the backpedaling in real-time.