With Pennsylvania’s unemployment rates at their highest levels since 1985, lawmakers must ease the state debt and limit its tax rates to draw business back into the commonwealth, Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Corbett said Wednesday.
‘What concerns me the most is that you will leave not only Penn State but Pennsylvania’ when you graduate, Corbett told an audience at Penn State University Park. He said that ‘this campaign is really about you, the young people … and what your future is going to be.’
Corbett joined Pat Toomey, the Pennsylvania GOP nominee for U.S. Senate, for a roughly half-hour rally inside the HUB-Robeson Center, where an estimated 100 supporters gathered. Both men railed against big government, saying that bloated spending hobbles economic growth, drives away opportunity and saddles the next generation with untenable debts. Each of the men spoke about 10 minutes at the late-morning event.
In particular, Toomey flayed his Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, for supporting the federal stimulus bill, private-sector bailouts and ‘nationalizing industries,’ among other government initiatives. ‘It’s no wonder that we don’t have an economic recovery,’ Toomey said.
He said Sestak has ‘voted for every single bailout that’s come down the pike.’ But liberal ideology is ‘preventing the recovery we need,’ he went on. ‘ … Growing government does not create … family-sustaining jobs.’
In fact, Toomey said, the ‘only reason we don’t have a strong recovery is because of the misguided policies in Washington.’ He said too many federal lawmakers appear to want to follow a European model of greater governmental influence. Toomey said he advocates what he dubbed a more traditionally American, limited approach to governance.
‘France might be a nice place to visit,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to be France.’
State Sen. Jake Corman, R-Benner Township, introduced Toomey. He said Toomey, a former congressman from the Allentown area, has been ‘ahead of the curve’ in promoting fiscal restraint for years..
‘It’s time that we catch up,’ Corman said. He called the U.S. Senate race — to decide who succeeds longtime U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter — ‘probably the most important race we’re going to face here in November.’
Corman also is running this year — to retain his own seat. He is facing a challenge from State College Democrat Jon Eich, a Centre County commissioner.
Before Toomey and Corbett took the floor, Joyce Haas introduced Corman to the audience in the HUB. Haas, too, is running for an elected office in the Nov. 2 elections. The vice-chairman of the state Republican party, she is attempting to unseat incumbent state Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township.
Haas, of Patton Township, encouraged Penn State students to maintain their enthusiasm in the days leading up to Tuesday — Election Day.
‘We cannot let any apathy set in,’ Haas told the group, soon adding: ‘The change that needs to happen is not the change that happened two years ago.’
Both Corbett and Toomey are in the lead in their respective races, polling data suggest. A Franklin and Marshall poll released Wednesday morning showed Toomey ahead of Sestak by seven percentage points among likely voters. Another Franklin and Marshall poll showed Corbett with a 15-percentage-point lead on Dan Onorato — the Democratic gubernatorial nominee — among likely voters.
‘We can do this,’ Toomey told the Penn State audience, urging supporters to be ‘confident but not complacent.’
‘We’ve got to do it together,’ he said.
At a post-rally press conference, a reporter asked Corbett for his take on Gov. Ed Rendell’s moratorium on additional natural-gas drilling on state property. Corbett, the state attorney general, said the move ‘is almost schizophrenic’ given that Rendell earlier agreed to lease state land to the gas industry.
The moratorium ‘is only effective — as far as I’m concerned — until he leaves office,’ Corbett said of Rendell.
In addition, Corbett said Onorato is trying to scare senior citizens with a recent television commercial. The commercial suggests that some senior services could be cut if Corbett becomes governor. Corbett called the ad a distortion, saying that it lacks factual citations. At least one senior service mentioned in the commercial — Meals on Wheels — is funded not by the state government, but by the federal government, Corbett said.
Likewise, Corbett defended a recent advertisement aired by his campaign. It says Allegheny County has lost some 21,000 during Onorato’s tenure there as county-government chief executive.
Corbett pointed out that an Onorato ad gives the Democratic candidate for creating 9,000 jobs in Allegheny County.
‘If you’re going to take credit for things, you have to take responsibility’ for the negative news, too, Corbett said.
Earlier coverage
