'They would rather demagogue us for gutting these programs than acknowledge that you have to deal with these programs,' Toomey said of Democrats' budget policies. 'They feel better to just aim their fire and not have a plan.' Vote in the NEWS POLL.
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., met with The Express-Times editorial board on Monday afternoon.U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey said it was "very unlikely" he will be Mitt Romney's running mate, despite several conservative groups putting him at the top of their lists.
Toomey made the observation Monday during a meeting with The Express-Times editorial board.
The Republican junior senator said he had spoken with Romney, but not about being vice president.
"I think it is very unlikely," he said of his chances of being the running mate. "We've got a deep bench. We've got a lot of people that would bring a lot to a national ticket."
Toomey, of Upper Milford Township, toured Nazareth-based C.F. Martin & Co. Inc. on Monday before sitting down at The Express-Times to talk about the cost of war, bailouts, partisanship, the deregulation of financial markets and his White House ambitions.
Toomey pointed to the passage of the bipartisan JOBS, or Jumpstart Our Business Startups, Act as a rare bright spot in a divided U.S. Congress, but said he understood voters' frustration with a lack of progress in Washington, D.C.
"Voters have every right to be very frustrated," he said. "There's an objective fact here: There's one party showing up and putting a blueprint on the table."
He said Democrats in Congress failed to offer alternatives after they rejected Republican budgets because "it's not easy" to come up with a workable spending plan.
"They would rather demagogue us for gutting these programs than acknowledge that you have to deal with these programs," he said. "They feel better to just aim their fire and not have a plan."
Toomey painted a dire national budget situation but said the end of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will reduce spending.
"There's going to be a big reduction in cost," he said, "because you know how incredibly expensive it is to maintain that kind of tempo over there."
He said the country's fiscal problems are not caused by defense, but by interest on debt, Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.
"There's not a chance in the world that we can continue running deficits like we've been running and think that it's not going to blow up," he said.
Toomey said the economy had gotten better since 2009, but could have improved more if the government stopped interfering.
He blamed the Barack Obama administration for not letting companies fail during the economic collapse.
"The stimulus was counterproductive," he said. "I just don't accept the premise that you can go out and borrow and spend your way to prosperity."
He said the United States' wealth does not come from how much money the government spends but how much society produces.
"That's what we ought to be focused on," he said of encouraging production. "...so the output of goods and services grows. Then, we will be a wealthier society. There will be more jobs, more opportunity."