Sen. Toomey Wants More Options To Raise Employment
PITTSBURGH (NewsRadio 1020 KDKA) - Once a month Sen. Pat Toomey joins Mike Pintek to talk about the issues that affect all Pennsylvanians. Today the two discussed possible ideas to offset the spending for unemployment and what could raising the minimum wage do for our economy.
"First of all, it's just not true that it's somehow good for the economy to just continuously have these very, very long periods where unemployment benefits are available." said Toomey. "Secondly, it's a cost of over $6 billion."
He feels that if Sen. Reid will allow the offset spending of that money, then they will be borrowing the money to pay for those benefits. But, his point is that before they decide to borrow the money, they should look at options to offset the money instead.
Sen. Toomey states that he is very open to any ideas on changing the spending. He wants to find a solution rather than going out and borrowing the money without an offset. He adds that total federal spending has more than doubled in the last 12 years.
"We have so much wasteful spending in Washington, we have so many redundant, programs, we have so many programs that have grown enormously," said Toomey. "I'd be open to any number of ways we could trim this."
Each state is treated different with the unemployment rate. States with a higher unemployment rate will be given more of an extension to that six-month limit. Likewise for the states with a low unemployment rate they will receive less time for an extension. Sen. Toomey believes it could range anywhere from 12 weeks to maybe even more than 26 weeks.