Kelly Ayotte: I Would Have Voted Against Senate Jobs Bill
EmailABC News’ Rick Klein reports: New Hampshire Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte — slammed by Democrats for not taking a position on the Senate jobs bill that passed last week — said today that she would have voted against it because it wasn’t paid for. ”I don't think that particular proposal I would have supported,” Ayotte, a former New Hampshire attorney general, told ABC News in an interview in Washington. “I did like pieces of it. I liked the payroll tax-cut piece. There were other pieces of spending in it that I don't think we would have; one of the concerns I had with the bill is how we're going to pay for it. And there wasn't a proposal on the table to say we're going to have corresponding cuts to pay for it, or even we're going to use existing stimulus money to pay for it.”The $15 billion proposal drew the support of five Republicans to break a GOP-led filibuster, including that of Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., the newly installed senator from Ayotte’s neighboring state. ”I would have liked to have seen something that said we've got a way to pay for it,” Ayotte said. “So that would have been a primary concern of mine, and probably voting differently than [Brown] on it. But because fundamentally we do need to do something about jobs, and I certainly support whether it's a payroll [tax break] — some way to incentivize, too, on keeping the tax structure low for employers. But we do need to pay for it. And I think the stimulus package — there's $500 billion that hasn't been spent on that. You know, maybe the best decision is to either apply [unspent funds] to our deficit, or if you are going to pass a jobs bill, makes sure it's paid for by that money.”
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Why do Dems refuse to pay for anything?
Must be in the genes.
Posted by: Sir Toby Belch | March 2, 2010, 5:26 pm 5:26 pm
Scott Brown……. that’s a name we haven’t heard for a while. Wait, didn’t he vote for the jobs bill?? Maybe that’s why we haven’t heard any thing about him. So much for the gloating about the “stunning” victory!
Posted by: Tyrone | March 2, 2010, 5:53 pm 5:53 pm
Thats exactly why Kelly will not ever be elected. She is an idiot…..
Posted by: chris clarke | March 2, 2010, 7:23 pm 7:23 pm
Kelly wake up either funding will come from the next generation tax payer. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
“When the price to support government
and the cost to protect oneself from it
becomes too great, it’s time to say
‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’ and vote Libertarian.”
Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate Ken Blevens
Posted by: Ken Blevens | March 3, 2010, 9:46 am 9:46 am
a $15 billion emergency expenditure for business tax breaks vs $3 trillion unpaid for Bush tax cuts, 2 wars and Medicare Part D. Is that what you are referencing?
Posted by: leichtman | March 3, 2010, 10:07 am 10:07 am
Funny that the Republicans didn’t worry about paying for things when they ran up a trillion dollar deficit under little Bush. They only worry about paying for things when they’re NOT in power!
Posted by: Tom B | March 3, 2010, 1:42 pm 1:42 pm
Hello? Kelly? Anybody home?
Posted by: Robert | March 3, 2010, 5:39 pm 5:39 pm
Republicans are all about talking points. Lower taxes good. Spending bad. That’s all they ever say but there’s no substance to it. Not only is it not substantial, it’s idiotic:
If we take in less money and spend less money then the deficit will go down. Huh?
You can’t have it both ways, G-No!-P.
Posted by: GG in DC | March 3, 2010, 5:40 pm 5:40 pm
When the country is in a severe recession, deficits go up, because revenues are down. Republicans have no conception of macroeconomics — cutting taxes when the economy is good, thereby stimulating overheaded expansion (creating bubbles like the real estate bubble that just burst) — and then insisting on “paying for” countercyclical stimulus like jobs bills, thereby contracting the economy just as it’s starting to expand again. According to Republicans, tax cuts never need to be paid for — they’re an end in themselves — and wars are always put on the credit card, again because Republicans consider war an end in itself. It’s only when we come to helping working families find jobs, or to continue unemployment benefits in an economy where there are five unemployed workers for every job opening, that the Republicans decide we need to cut other federal spending.
Posted by: Headlight | March 3, 2010, 11:04 pm 11:04 pm
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz put it best when she said, “Isn’t it funny how you never hear anything about deficits when Republicans are in office?”
Not only do you not hear any Repug voices for two rounds of Bush tax cuts (NOT PAID FOR), two wars (NOT PAID FOR AND KEPT OFF THE BOOKS BY FUNDING THEM THROUGH EMERGENCY APPROPRIATION BILLS), and the Medicare giveaway to Big Pharma, but they also call helping Americans out of work “entitlement programs”, but it’s okay when we SHRINK-WRAP $12 BILLION IN $100 BILLS, SHIP IT TO IRAQ, AND WATCH IT DISAPPEAR.
Posted by: Greg F. | March 3, 2010, 11:34 pm 11:34 pm
‘Doing something’ is Curly of the Three Stooges drilling a hole in a rowboat to ‘let the water out’.
‘Doing something’ isn’t always the best idea. Sometimes doing nothing, or nearly nothing is the best idea, such as when faced with a carnivorous predator like a tiger in the wild. (Tigers instinctually attack animals that flee from them.) ‘Doing something’ is why the U.S. is almost bankrupt and has a massively declined manufacturing economy.
Competent, effective governance has little to do with political success. It has to do with do what’s truly right for your State or Country, as opposed to what is right for your own political benefit. If children would vote for an adult who gave them what they want, perhaps lots of candy, and unfortunately today’s adult voters are little different.
Posted by: Mike Smith | March 5, 2010, 11:37 am 11:37 am