Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), called the letter full of “contradictions.”
“He’s calling on Congress to pass a [jobless] bill that will add about $80 billion to the deficit, but then calls for fiscal discipline; he says these measures need to be targeted and temporary, but then calls for extending programs passed in the stimulus more than a year ago,” Stewart said in an e-mail.
Republicans have offered an alternative package that proposes to cover the cost of additional jobless benefits — but not aid to state governments — by cutting federal spending elsewhere. In contrast to the Democratic bill, the GOP measure would reduce deficits by nearly $55 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.