The Wall Street Journal reported that a Senate Democrat, Claire McCaskill [MO] “joined Sen. Bob Corker (R, Tenn.) in unveiling legislation to reduce both discretionary and mandatory spending to 20.6% of gross domestic product over 10 years.”
According to The Hill, McCaskill’s support of the bill could severely threaten her reelection bid:
That would mean huge, and likely unpopular, budget cuts, as current federal spending stands at 24.7 percent of GDP. But McCaskill said she’s willing to lose her election if it means the legislation will be approved.
“If this bill is distorted and twisted, it could cost me my Senate seat, but it’s a price I am willing to pay…for my country, and more importantly, it is a price I am willing to pay for my grandchildren,” McCaskill said in a floor speech supporting the bill on Tuesday.
The McCaskill-Corker bill would force the government to cap its spending at a declining percentage of GDP over the next 10 years by implementing a “glide path” over the next decade that would cap all spending.
“Getting control of spending is very, very hard, but we have to do it and we have to do it now,” McCaskill said in her floor speech. “But this bill is possible. It tells the American people that our spending is going to be capped at a certain amount of economic spending in this country.”
