Town Hall at UMKC

Photo Credit: Janet Rogers, Division of Strategic Marketing and Communications

Senator McCaskill talks roads, bridges and healthcare

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill led off the Kansas City leg of her “McCaskill on Main Street” tour by snapping a pic of the audience at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Student Union and talking about how to improve Missouri’s roads and bridges.

The state is No. 10 in need of bridge replacement but 45th in terms of infrastructure funding, so the Democrat said she was working with Republican Senator Roy Blunt to fix the problem. They are proposing to create auctions for American companies storing cash overseas to avoid taxes, with the goal to lure that money back to the U.S. For example, the state would put $50 billion in a bond fund and companies would bid on the amount of taxes they would pay to buy these bonds.

As part of the town hall meeting, she answered questions from constituents:

  • She remains in favor of Obamacare. The irony, she says, is rural Missourians who don’t support it are on the line for losing their hospitals to pay for uninsured patients.
  • She doesn’t have answers to help the Kansas City School District. A major problem, she says, is that students miss school to babysit their younger siblings while their parents work.
  • She supports maintaining the level of arts funding because it creates a lot of jobs. She congratulated Jane Chu, president and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, on the President nominating her to chair the National Endowment for the Arts.
  • She wants comprehensive immigration reform. She gave an example of wanting to keep international engineering graduates in the country — instead of forcing them to return home overseas — because the U.S. needs engineers.

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