Interviewed today after an event being held for senior citizens in Hempfield, Lancaster County, Republican candidate for Governor Tom Corbett, answered questions regarding comments he made on Friday July 9th as he went to door-to-door in Elizabethtown also in Lancaster County. Scott Detrow of Pennsylvania Public Radio, which includes local affiliate WITF, recorded Corbett making several comments including the following: “The jobs are there. But if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there … I’ve literally had construction companies tell me, I can’t get people to come back to work until…they say, ‘I’ll come back to work when unemployment runs out.’”
“At the time I was responding to a specific question, I had been asked” Corbett said. ”I didn’t communicate clearly enough that my answer was related to that specific question. I never meant to appear insensitive to our state’s unemployed workers.”
Pointing out that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate (as of May) was 9.1%, it’s highest since 1980 Corbett said ”That kind of number doesn’t occur unless there is a serious problem. We definitely need to develop better ways of connecting potential employers and employees.” Corbett went on to repeat his own plan to alleviate unemployment in the state which is detailed on his campaign website: TomCorbettforgovernor.com.
Dan Onorato, Corbett’s Democratic opponent, has used the comments to paint Tom Corbett who is currently the state’s Attorney General, as “out-of-touch” and someone who apparently has “…never met someone who is unemployed”. At a press conference held this morning on the steps of the State Capitol, Onorato vigorously defended the state’s unemployed saying: “People are struggling to find work. No one can convince me that people don’t have an incentive. The problem is that the jobs went away. We have to get the jobs back.”
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Everyone is fed up with lazy people getting money to sit around on unemployment benefits. Tom Corbett can put an end to the frivolous waste on these people. If they don’t work, they shouldn’t be getting our money.
Like Tom said, there ARE jobs, but lazy people want to get money for nothing instead of taking those jobs.
Sharron Angle is right too, when she says the unemplopyed are spoiled. Companies can outsource jobs to other countries where people work hard for much less than Americans. They don’t expect a hand-out like the workers in USA do.
Americas unemployed can only blame themselves for being so greedy that companies are forced to hire foreigners and open satellite offices in other countries.
Today, American workers face the worst job market since the Great Depression, with unemployment stuck at 9.5 percent. In May, there were 11.8 million more unemployed workers than there were job openings. There are five workers trying to get every one available job. But Tom Corbett characterizes these people as lazy moochers. Two million of them lost unemployment compensation in the past six weeks as Republicans in Congress blocked extension. But those same Republicans want to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich — without paying for them.