WASHINGTON, D.C. – At the recent Senate Finance Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) discussed why President-elect Biden’s proposed spending package doesn’t help Americans most in need, slows the economic recovery, and makes it harder to come to bipartisan agreement.
Toomey told Dr. Janet Yellen, President-elect Biden’s nominee to lead the Treasury Department, “I look forward to working with you, but I have to admit that the contours of the stimulus bill proposed by the Biden administration are going to make that difficult. The ink is barely dry on the second-largest stimulus package in American history, nearly a trillion dollars, after nearly three trillion dollars earlier in the year, and we’re looking at another spending blowout,” he said. “The only organizing principle that I can discern is it seems to spend as much money as possible, seemingly for the sake of spending it.
“An additional $1,400 per person, regardless of the person’s circumstances, guaranteeing that there will be several thousand dollars in payments going to families with six-figure incomes who’ve had no income interruption whatsoever just makes absolutely no sense. Increasing unemployment benefits such that a majority of unemployed workers will make more money unemployed than they make working can only slow the return to a normal, healthy labor market. Sending states more money than they’ve lost in revenue or in additional spending is just not a good idea.”
Toomey said an arbitrary government-mandated minimum wage increase is going to cost jobs.
“Obviously, it will result in some job losses, so these proposals are not targeted at those who really need them, they can’t be justified on the grounds of effectiveness, and it’s going to be hard to get to a bipartisan agreement based on this,” he said.
