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Corbett says he didn’t mean to sound ‘insensitive’

Hammered by Democrats from Harrisburg to Washington, Republican Tom Corbett said Monday that it wasn’t his intention to be “insensitive” when he said last week that some Pennsylvanians are purposefully staying jobless to collect unemployment benefits.

“People are perceiving it as insensitive,” Corbett told Capitolwire in an interview. But while he acknowledged to the subscription news service that he “wasn’t clear and complete” enough in his original remarks, the attorney general and his campaign didn’t disavow the original comments. The campaign says Corbett was simply relaying conversations he’s had with employers, and his attempt to soften the rhetoric came as Democratic rival Dan Onorato continued to seize on the issue during an appearance in Harrisburg.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive—that certainly wasn’t the intention,” Corbett said. “I’m not insensitive to it. I know that the people of Pennsylvania, we’ve got a 9.1 percent unemployment rate. We’ve got to improve that. I think I’ve talked about we need to improve it by getting more jobs to Pennsylvania, by keeping businesses in Pennsylvania, by reducing the cost of taxes in Pennsylvania, of doing business in Pennsylvania.”

Onorato stayed on the attack at the Capitol.

“My opponent thinks that what’s wrong with the economy is that Pennsylvanians are lazy and don’t want to work,” Onorato said, according to The Morning Call. “He is simply wrong.”

July 13, 2010 at 8:19 am

--pa2010.com Staff

Tags: Dan Onorato, Tom Corbett

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