WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, a bipartisan vote in the Senate Finance Committee marked the next step toward combining two versions of health insurance reform legislation in the Senate. As the two bills – the Finance Committee’s newly passed bill and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill passed this summer – are combined into one version to be sent to the Senate floor for a vote, U.S. Senator McCaskill is focused on ensuring that waste-cutting reforms remain in the combined bill in order to strengthen Medicare. Without currently proposed reforms, Medicare will run out of money by 2017.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Standing up against bad federal spending habits once again, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today offered an amendment related to her quest to reform the earmarking process that has taken over Washington. Her amendment to remove earmarks and restore competitive grant funding to the ‘Save America’s Treasures’ program in the Interior Appropriations Bill for FY2010 was forced to be set aside when a procedural maneuver employed by the Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee passed by a vote of 72-26.  A substantial portion of the funds for this program were earmarked for a select few states, leaving significantly less money for competition among other states.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today U.S. Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Mark Begich (D-AK), Evan Bayh (D-IN), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) sent a letter to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) in advance of next week’s mark up of health reform legislation, urging him to include further cost-cutting measures to curb the rapid growth of health care spending.  In the letter, the senators recognize that getting costs under control will require more than mere rhetoric, and offer their support in making decisions that may be unpopular to influential industry groups.

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill applauded the Small Business Administration (SBA) on a new program that begins today which would loan up to $35,000 to “viable” small businesses that can demonstrate “immediate financial need”.  The America’s Recovery Capitol (ARC) loan program received $255 million through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the economic stimulus package, to help small businesses survive and prosper through the current economic downturn.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As people prepared their taxes this year, many families and small businesses across America were hoping to find ways they could save money amid the economic crisis. U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill wants Missourians to know about all the ways the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act will help keep a little extra cash in their pockets over the coming months and during the next year’s tax season. Approximately 40 percent of recovery spending was in the form of tax relief and one third of the total spending goes back into the pocket of American taxpayers.