The Toomey Ticker

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party has started a "Toomey Ticker" counting up the time that Pat Toomey has remained silent about the jobs bill that would help get more Americans back to work. The elapsed time is over two weeks at the time I post this.

Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey hasn't yet taken a position on the jobs bill that passed the Senate a couple weeks ago, even though the bill has exactly the kind of tax relief and help for small business that Pat Toomey has demanded.

At a candidates forum this month in Philadelphia, Toomey indicated the federal government should cut taxes for businesses to try to create jobs. Toomey wanted to see tax cuts for employers rather than stimulus money to create jobs:

"We should instead look at ways of cutting taxes including payroll taxes for workers and the matching employer share," Toomey said at the forum. "You know if we did that every worker gets an immediate take home pay raise and every employer finds it less expensive to hire the next worker. I think that's a lot better than just growing government."

The jobs bill that Toomey refuses to talk about contains:

• tax credits to businesses that hire new workers
• temporary relief from the 6.25 percent share of the payroll (Social Security) tax employers must pay

These are exactly the incentives to create jobs Toomey said he supports. Toomey has yet to even comment on the bill. What's the problem?

Commenting on the slowness to pass the jobs bill, Arlen Specter said:

"With our economy still struggling to return to prosperity, unemployment fluctuating around 9.7 percent our government cannot stand idly by and let families and businesses who are in need suffer."