GOP wants extension of benefits without ‘gargantuan spending’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stressed Sunday that Republicans are “all for extending unemployment insurance.”

With the Democrats’ 60th vote to extend unemployment benefits set to be sworn in Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stressed Sunday that Republicans are “all for extending unemployment insurance” but not in favor of deficit spending.

“We recently passed a $13 trillion cumulative deficit threshold. When are we going to get serious about this?” McConnell said, accusing the Obama administration of going on a “gargantuan spending spree.”

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” the leader beat back comparisons of deficit spending in the George W. Bush administration.

“They’ve taken the deficit as a percentage of GDP from 3.2 percent to almost 10 percent in a year and a half,” McConnell said of the Obama administration.

“Somewhere in the course of spending a trillion dollars, we ought to be able to find enough to pay for a program for the unemployed,” he said.

“If we can’t pay for a program like extension of unemployment insurance that virtually every member of the Senate — I think, in fact, every member of the Senate wants to extend, then what are we going to pay for? When do we start?”